Road to Recovery
by FiercesomestDefenestrator
Summary: Direct sequel to Grimm Rats, in which everyone ships White Rose except for Weiss and possibly Ruby. Genre: friendship? Romance? Suspense? Who knows. Our favorite heiress is charged with looking after her recuperating teammates. Pairings wide open to interpretation.
1. Initial Antics

**A/N: Hey! This is Fiercesomest with the next story in our saga of adventure and disaster with Team RWBY. This is a DIRECT sequel to our earlier fic, Grimm Rats- it's possible to read this one without that one, but really you might want to start there. **

**If you're unfamiliar with how we work, this story was written by TWO PEOPLE: Defenestrator and myself. She writes for Yang, Blake, Pyrrha, Lie Ren, among others, while I'm in charge of Ruby, Weiss, Jaune, and Nora. We've pieced together our correspondence for you to enjoy, and should have a new chapter up every Saturday for the foreseeable future. **

**We've been writing this as Volume II comes out, so it's more than likely a bunch of the stuff we've made up is wrong. Just so you know.**

**In any case, enjoy the ride,  
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**- Fiercesomest**

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><p>Steady beeps and blips from countless monitors filled the air of the unusually crowded infirmary of Beacon. A stately physician dressed in blue scrubs and a white lab coat eyed the chart in her hand before addressing the four girls in front of her. She first turned to face Ruby, who was sitting on one of the infirmary's beds with one leg stretched out in front of her, the ghastly wound in her thigh thoroughly cleaned and bandaged.<p>

"Ruby Rose. Laceration to the leg and prolonged exposure to Grimm rat toxins. You will be taking an especially potent course of antitoxin. You should also stay off of that leg for the time being. You will be issued a pair of crutches."

Glancing back down at the chart, the physician next faced Blake, sitting quietly at the edge of Yang's infirmary bed. She still somehow managed to look demure while sporting an eyepatch over her left eye and an enormous square bandage on her forehead.

"Blake Belladonna. Retinal detachment due to concussive head trauma," she smiled at the eyepatch, "I'm glad to hear your surgery went well. You will be given strong medication to help with controlling any post-surgical pain. Please try to avoid straining your eyes for now."

The physician then turned to Yang, who looked as though she was headed to a Halloween party in a mummy costume.

"Yang Xiao Long," the physician stared blankly at the laundry list of issues. Broken arm, lacerations, slight concussion, toxin exposure, fractured vertebrae - how exactly had this girl survived? "Just... take your medications and try not to move. Anything."

Finally, she turned to Weiss, who was sitting beside Ruby and nursing a lightly bandaged hand.

"Weiss Schnee. As the healthiest member of team RWBY, you will be charged with the care of your teammates following their discharge from the infirmary," she glanced at the chart again, "which is today."

Without another word, the physician nodded and left.

As if to express her excitement, Yang rolled over and vomited over the side of her bed.

"Oh, _wonderful_," the Schnee heiress pinched the bridge of her nose between the thumb and forefinger of her good hand as the blonde brawler emptied the contents of her stomach onto the checkered floor. The nurses moved to clean up the mess. "This is precisely how I've always wanted to spend my time at Beacon."

"Hey, I'm sure it won't be so bad," Ruby fiddled with the child-proof cap on the container of pills she'd been provided with. Apparently the anti-toxin course came with some pretty heavy pain medication. "We've got, what? A couple of weeks of recovery time? We're even excused from classes!"

The young team leader rubbed the back of her neck as Weiss took the container. She opened it with one deft motion and handed it back, rolling her blue eyes.

Ruby went on matter-of-factly, "We _did _kind of defeat an ancient evil that no one's even seen in hundreds of years. If that's not worth a couple days off from Professor Port's class, I don't know what is."

Someone brought in a wheelchair to get Yang back to the dorms.

Weiss observed the preparations with a scathing gaze, "How is she even getting discharged? Did no one see the projectile vomit a second ago?"

Despite the sarcasm, Weiss listened dutifully as the nurses went over who needed which pills when and how the anti-toxin shots were to be administered. Everything came with labels just in case, and of course the infirmary staff would be available if she ran into trouble. Otherwise, everyone was stable and on the road to recovery- they just needed time.

* * *

><p>Weiss tossed her white hair back over the shoulder of her black school jacket, crossing her arms as she inspected the new, temporary sleeping arrangements. Yang's mattress was situated in the middle of the floor- inconvenient, but necessary considering there was no way she'd be able to manage the top bunk.<p>

Blake had her own bunk, and the heiress had allotted Ruby her own bunk, as it was lower to the ground. This meant that Weiss was going to have to deal with sleeping in the hanging death-trap above her invalid partner, but sacrifices had to be made.

Gray light filtered in through the curtains from the overcast sky outside. When the nurses had left after getting folks settled, Weiss straightened her collar, "So here we are. Does... anyone need anything? Because if you don't, I'm going to the library to pick up some books."

Blake's ears pricked. Books. She leaned forward from her spot on the edge of her bed, gripping the loose fabric of her sleep pants in silent frustration. The infirmary had been bereft of literature outside of magazines and Blake wanted to read something _so_ badly, but in a cruel twist of fate, reading had been surprisingly high on the list of things that caused the very eye strain she had been instructed to avoid.

Yang's muffled voice drifted up from her position face-down on her mattress on the floor. "I need… a hug~" One strong arm reached up for whatever was closest by. As the unfortunate bearer of that distinction, Blake suddenly found herself pulled to the floor in a surprisingly tight embrace.

The Faunus struggled for only a moment before she resigned herself to her fate. Even if her partner wasn't exactly the picture of health at the moment, the brawler's grip was still ironclad. Blake's thoughts halted at the idea of pictures. She lifted her head to look directly at Weiss from her position pinned to the floor, expression passive but eyes shining. "Bring me some picture books, please."

"And Popular Weapons issues!" Ruby bounced upright on Weiss's bed covers. She was dressed in her sleeveless pajama undershirt and a pair of shorts. The bandage on her leg showed prominently. "Or Projectile Explosives Weekly. Either is fine."

"... right. I'll see what I can find," Weiss raised an eyebrow at the tangled mess that was Yang and Blake. It seemed that Yang's pain medication was rather potent. "If anyone needs to throw up," she plunked the small dorm-room trash can within easy reach in the middle of the floor between Ruby and Yang, "this is where you aim. Ruby, take your pain medication. Yang, _stop moving_. Blake, you're fine. I'll be back in a minute."

Weiss shut the door behind her and breathed a small sigh of relief. So far so good. Maybe these two weeks wouldn't be as big a disaster as she was expecting.

Then she thought about her three teammates.

Ha. Right. This was going to be a complete nightmare.

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><p>At the sound of the door shutting, Yang shifted and muttered something incoherent, making Blake squirm - her partner's breath was tickling her neck. Blake eyed the drugged up blonde below her. The brawler hadn't really had a lucid moment since first waking in a panic and trying to storm through the medevac ship to find her sister.<p>

Blake quietly wondered if the nurses had mixed some kind of tranquilizer into Yang's pain killers. Oh right - pain killers. She needed to take her own soon. The pinned faunus tried to sit up once, twice, three times, only to be dragged back down with each attempt. Blake eyed Ruby imploringly. "A little help?"

"Sure thing," Ruby scooted to the edge of the bed to snag her bottle of pain meds, and _yowch_ her leg hurt. Definitely past time for the painkillers. Blake's she had to lean across the bookcase under the window to get.

Then came the hard part. Ruby wrestled with the plastic containers, grumbling, "Why do they always make these lids so hard to get off?"

Blake stared at her team leader clearly having difficulties with child-proof caps. She tried to sit up again. "Actually, I meant he-hhhGHHhh," Blake's sentence was cut short as the bandaged arm around her tightened suddenly, squeezing the air from her lungs. "help... getting... up..."

"Oh, right, gotcha," Ruby gave up on the pills and turned to address her heavily bandaged sister, "Hey sis, you're strangling Blake so you should probably stop." She eased off the bed to balance on one leg and reach across the small distance between Weiss's bed and Yang's mattress, holding out the pill bottle, "Also, can you open this?"

Blake got a face full of wild blonde hair as Yang slowly turned her head towards Ruby. One bleary amethyst eye dropped open, focusing on the bottle of pills before travelling up to Ruby's face. After a moment of what seemed like intense concentration, Yang reached out, right past the pills, and gently took hold of Ruby's arm.

"Yang- no. Yang!"

With a languid smile, she yanked her little sister down to join her impromptu cuddle pile, pulling her close. "Warm~"

A teammate secured in each arm, the brawler promptly returned to dreamland.

Trying and failing to keep Yang's hair at bay, Blake gingerly removed the pill bottle from the hand that had suddenly appeared in front of her face. One quick twist, and she returned the capless bottle back to Ruby's hand. "Well, it was a valiant effort."

Ruby lay in a mess of books and papers she had inadvertently swept from the top of the bookcase in her effort to not be pulled in. She shoved at her sister, momentarily forgetting the bandages. Then, realizing that adding more physical trauma to Yang's already precarious state was probably not the way to go, she tried to get ahold of something else to pull herself free.

"Let. _Go._" Ruby strained up off the mattress with one arm, bearing most of Yang's weight, and tried to grab the top of the bookshelf, or the window sill, or something. She got the curtain instead.

RIIIIIIIIIIP.

The red fabric drifted down over them like a sheet. Pills went everywhere. Ruby maneuvered around in Yang's grip and looked at the empty bottle in her hand. "Uh, thanks Blake, by the way."

* * *

><p>Weiss's footsteps echoed in the stone hall as she trekked back to the dorms, arms laden with books, magazines, and packages of powdered sports drink and tea. She'd run into Jaune, who had provided the former (and she would have thrown them away except he rambled for an eternity of seconds about how they helped keep him hydrated when he had some sort of stomach bug, and well, hydration was an acceptable cause) and Professor Ooblek, who had equipped her with the latter.<p>

There were no markings on the handsome green tin concerning how much caffeine was in this particular brand of tea, but Weiss couldn't bring herself to pitch a gift from a professor. At least not till she was back in the room, where no one would see.

When she reached the door, she shifted the load of reading material so she could swipe her key and work the door handle.

The scene that greeted her made her stop short. The curtain was ripped down, there were papers and books everywhere, and all three of her teammates were down on the mattress on the floor. Weiss glanced at the clock. She'd been gone for fifteen minutes.

"... all _three_ of you are a hazard to my health. I hope you realize that."

It took a combined effort and a decent bit of gentle prying, but with Weiss's help Yang's captives were eventually released. They decided to leave the brawler under the downed curtain, hoping it would keep her warm enough to deter future hug attacks. Blake tucked the surprisingly soft red fabric tightly around her partner, pinning those dangerous arms to her sides.

"There," she sat back and inspected her handiwork with a firm tug - good, tight as a straightjacket. "That should do it." Carefully backing away from Yang's sleeping figure, she turned to Ruby and Weiss, who were still scouring the floor for the scattered pills. "Are you having any luck?"

On the other side of the room, Weiss smacked her head on the underside of a desk.

"Luck?" She seethed, rubbing her head and straightening more slowly this time, "_Tons_ of it. Ruby, did you take any of these while I was gone?"

"Uh... I kind of got interrupted," the normally energetic team leader sat on the circular rug in the middle of the floor, listless, with her bad leg stretched out in front of her. She looked a little pale.

Great. Weiss crossed her arms. Ruby's aura had held out against the poison and the leg-wound for a long time, but the kick she'd gotten from whatever the medical staff had given her was starting to give out. "Well then sit down and take one."

Ruby leaned back on her hands, quirking an eyebrow, "... I _am _sitting."

"I mean on the bed," Weiss snapped, "These aren't cheap off-the-shelf painkillers. If they knock you out I am _not _going to pick you up off the floor," she strode to the bathroom to rinse Ruby's coffee mug and fill it with water.

When she returned, the younger girl was situated on her bed, propped up against the headboard with pillows. She had a kind of chastised puppy look that Weiss pointedly ignored as she thrust out the mug to her, "Here."

"You know, I really don't feel that bad," Ruby took the mug, but hesitated with the pills. She _hated_ swallowing pills.

With a quick eye roll, Blake moved over to the pile of books left by the door. Weiss honestly had the bedside manner of a cactus. Blake picked up the top book, then nearly dropped it in surprise when someone knocked on the door. She glanced at Weiss and waved a hand. "I've got it."

While reaching for the door handle, Blake spared a quick glance at the book's title - The Very Hungry Beowulf... was this a _children's _book? That wasn't quite what she'd meant by picture book... A slight scowl on her face, Blake opened the door.

"Pyrrha?"

"Blake! Glad to see you well. I can't stay long, but Nora and I baked these for you." Pyrrha, dressed in her school uniform, her crimson hair up in its signature tail, thrust a plate of cookies into Blake's unoccupied hand. Some of them appeared slightly mangled, but many of them actually looked bakery-worthy.

Pyrrha peered inside team RWBY's room, eyes roaming from Weiss fussing over Ruby, down to Yang on the floor. She leaned closer to Blake to whisper conspiratorially, "How is Yang taking the news?"

Blake blanched. "What news?"

Green eyes stealthily darted between Weiss and Ruby. "You know - those two." Met with nothing but a blank stare, Pyrrha continued slowly, looking increasingly nervous with each word. "Nora told us all about what Ren saw down in the tunnels. You were there, right?"

Blake scoured her memory for anything relevant. Ren had showed up right as Ruby lost consciousness. She hadn't been doing much, Ruby was just lying there, and Weiss was giving her... CPR... oh. _Oh._ Blake's lips twitched as she fought to keep a devious smile from spreading across her face. "Yang... has been asleep since the tunnels."

Pyrrha nodded solemnly. She then smiled, "If either of them needs someone to talk to, let them know we support them."

Blake smiled back, "I can do that." She waved as the redheaded huntress headed down the hall.

Meanwhile, Weiss was about ready to shove the medicine down Ruby's throat. She set the case of antitoxin on the bookcase by the window sill harder than was necessary. "Just swallow like there's nothing there."

"I'm trying, but it's _huge_. It's like a pill for horses, or something," Ruby whined, holding the pill in her front teeth. She turned the mug in her hands, "and it tastes bad."

"You're not supposed to _taste _it, you're supposed to _swallow _it," the heiress informed her, "Have you seriously never taken pain medication before?"

"Um... does cough syrup count?" Ruby tried to grin around the pill to defuse the heiress's darkening look, but to no avail, "Uh, I mean, there's not a chewable version is there? In a flavor that's not... this...?"

Weiss glanced at her charge, busy readying a syringe with the pale yellow liquid from one of the vials from the case, "No. Now swallow it so I can give you this antitoxin sometime before you pass out from Grimm rat poisoning."

"Great, yeah, because getting a _shot _is really something to look forward to."

"It's an _injection _to keep you from _dying,_" Weiss whirled on her partner, "and you're getting it either way. The side effects happen to include a lot of muscle pain, though, hence the _pain medication_. But by all means go ahead and refuse to take it. Just don't wake me up in the middle of the night crying about how terrible you feel because I will have _zero _sympathy for you!"

"Okay, Weiss, chill out, I'll take it," Ruby spat the pill into her hand and held her mug up a little sheepishly, "Um, but first... I'm kind of out of water."

For a second, it looked like Weiss was going to blow up again, but she didn't. She set her jaw. Glared at Ruby. Then snatched the cup from the dark-haired girl and marched to the bathroom to refill it.

Blake managed to catch the last half of Ruby and Weiss's bickering as she shut the door. She grinned to herself. Those two really did fight like an old married couple. Cookies in hand, she strode over to Ruby as Weiss left.

"Here," she handed the plate, still warm, to her team leader, "a gift from Pyrrha and Nora. Sometimes it's easier to take pills with food than with water."

She glanced at the bathroom door, then back to Ruby, who still looked a bit sheepish. "You know, Weiss is only short with you because she cares." Blake winked - or possibly blinked, it was hard to tell with only one eye visible. "She was seriously worried about you down in the tunnels."

"She was?" Ruby said around a mouthful of cookie. The pill had vanished with the first bite. "I guess. I mean, I was worried about you guys too. That was not one of our best class field trips ever."

Blake shook her head in agreement, eye sparkling with mirth as she headed back to the door to search through the rest of the books.

Weiss stormed out from the bathroom with the mug of water in one hand. "Blake, did you just call me short?" she felt the flush creeping into her face. Her height was a somewhat touchy subject. She took in Ruby's situation at a glance and faced the injured Faunus, lifting her chin, "Why would you say something like that?"

Blake blinked. "What? I didn't... oh," she did her best to conceal a crooked smile, "Not _that_ kind of short, Weiss. I was just -" Blake's explanation was cut short by loudly rustling fabric. Her gaze snapped over to the pile of squirming red fabric and blonde hair that was her partner.

Yang twisted herself around and sat up, clearly struggling to free her arms from the curtain wrapped around her before giving up and sitting still. The brawler's eyes drifted open. Her sleep addled gaze zeroed in on the plate in Ruby's hands. "..._cookies_..."

Ruby looked from the half-demolished plate of baked goods to her sister. She broke off a piece of cookie and aimed, "Open your mouth, Yang."

Her sister complied.

"Fine, okay, throw food all over the dorm room. I don't care," Weiss abandoned the apparent misunderstanding with Blake and stalked back to the window, trading the mug for the syringe of antitoxin, "Ruby, let me see your arm so I can do this."

"Sure, hang on," Ruby chucked the cookie and did her best to hold still while Weiss administered the shot. She rubbed her arm when she was finished, grinning brightly, "Ouch. Well, less ouch than the whole leg thing, so that's alright. Yikes, that's cold!"

"Oh, grow up," Weiss met her partner's silver eyes for a second, checking to make sure she hadn't really hurt her or anything as she swiped the site of the injection with a rubbing-alcohol-soaked cotton ball.

Ruby just giggled good-naturedly and called out, "Heya Blake, can you bring me some of those magazines?"

"Sure." Blake grabbed the stack of magazines covered in pictures of weapons and ammunition and brought them to Ruby with a smile.

Satisfied, Weiss capped the syringe and set to work filling a new one, "Alright, Yang, it's your turn." She cast the brawler a slantwise glance, a little apprehensive about being anywhere near her while she was so out of it.

Blake glanced between Weiss and Yang. Still wrapped in her curtained prison, the blonde brawler was eyeing the syringe in Weiss's hand suspiciously as she chewed on the bit of cookie Ruby had tossed her. The hazy gleam in those amethyst eyes suggested anything but compliance.

"Weiss, let me give you a hand," Blake made her way to Yang's side, noting the way the brawler's eyes shifted away from the syringe to follow her across the room. Good, at least she had her attention.

Kneeling on the mattress, she gently wrapped her arms around her partner, carefully pulling down one side of the red fabric to expose a bare section of Yang's shoulder. Blake smiled as she felt the brawler relax - this girl really liked hugs. She glanced at Weiss. "I'll hold her still. It should be safe... probably."

"... maybe you should give her the shot. She is your partner," Weiss pointed out, edging slightly farther away from the mattress on the floor. She did not like hugs. Or punches to the face. The odds of receiving one or the other seemed about even under the current circumstances.

Blake furrowed her brows at the hesitant heiress. "And _you _happen to have depth perception right now, unlike some of us," she motioned with a finger to her eye patch.

Weiss's free hand twitched up a fraction of an inch- towards the scar across her left eye- before she stifled the movement. Hm. Eyepatches. Those brought back unpleasant memories. She scowled and dosed a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol, "Fine. Just keep her still."

On the bed, Ruby had a magazine open, but she wasn't reading it. "Good luck guys," she cheered them on with a mild punch to the air.

Weiss knelt gingerly on the edge of the mattress and reached to wipe a spot on Yang's shoulder with the cotton ball. Disinfect the area, administer the shot, and get out. Nothing she couldn't handle so long as Blake had a good hold on the brawler.

Yang flinched at the cold from the alcohol. Her eyes snapped back to the syringe nearing her arm, flashing dangerously. Blake held fast as the brawler started to squirm. She pleaded with her partner. "Yang, just one shot, and then I'll keep you company for a while, ok? How does that sound?"

Yang's sleepy amethyst eyes shifted to meet amber. She grinned. "...'kay."

Without warning Yang pulled her arm free and flopped back down onto her side, dragging her surprised partner down with her. She curled right up to Blake, easy smile on her face as she drifted back to sleep. Blake sighed from her new position on the floor - her right arm was pinned beneath the brawler's side, and the heavily bandaged arm around her waist wasn't going to let her up any time soon. She motioned to Yang's exposed shoulder with her free arm. "She's all yours, Weiss."

It looked like the blonde girl was going to comply. Or... at least she was unconscious. Close enough. Weiss breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thanks," she shifted a little closer to Yang and gave her the shot.

Ruby, still on top of the bed covers, turned back to her magazine. She was starting to feel a little bit... weird. But not bad. Except she couldn't read the paragraph accompanying the picture of a new brand of high-impact Dust rounds, "Hey, Weiss, are these magazines in English?"

"Yyyyyyes?" The heiress leaned back, feeling across the top of the wooden bookcase for the cap for the syringe. She tore her blue eyes away from the needle for a second and spotted the problem, "You're holding it upside down, you dunce."

"Ohhh," Ruby squinted down at the page, contemplating this revelation.

Weiss turned to Blake, who was still trapped in Yang's embrace on the mattress, "Please tell me you're not taking the same pain medication as these two."

Blake raised an eyebrow at Ruby, then shrugged. "I didn't compare labels." She put her unpinned hand to her head, "I probably should take mine soon though. I can feel the headache coming back."

Weiss jumped up and snatched the pill bottles to take a look. The capsules showed white through the orange plastic. The labels were the same. Exactly the same, in fact, barring a small dosage adjustment. She pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "Are you sure you couldn't get by with aspirin or something? I keep a supply on hand for occasions exactly like these."

"Guys, I think I want to be Crescent Rose when I grow up," Ruby announced. She was on her stomach, propping her head up with one hand while she 'read'.

"... just here," Weiss handed Blake the pills she needed. She set her fingertips on the coffee mug from earlier, "Do you need water?" If she did, Weiss had no idea how she would actually drink it, pinned as she was.

"No, I should be all right..." Blake glanced from Ruby, giggling to herself while reading a magazine upside down, to Yang, whose face was pressed into her neck and - was that _drool?_ - to the pills Weiss had just handed her. She narrowed her eyes at the two tiny capsules.

What exactly was _in _these things? For all intents and purposes it seemed to act like morphine, and Blake wasn't keen on the idea of leaving Weiss as the sole sane person in their dorm room. Her head twinged mercilessly, pressure building right behind her eyes signaling the onset of a migraine.

Then again, Weiss was perfectly competent. They would probably be fine. Maybe just half wouldn't affect her so badly… Blake popped one of the two pills into her mouth, grateful that it was much smaller than Ruby's, and swallowed. Coughing slightly - those pills really did taste awful - she looked back at Weiss. "I guess I'll take one of those picture books though..."

Beacon's library didn't have a large children's section, so Weiss had gone ahead and checked out most of it. She crossed the room and collected the stack.

"Does it matter which one? There's _Goodnight Shattered Moon_, or _The little Dust-propulsion Engine that Could_..." That could what? Weiss frowned at the simple drawing on the cover and flipped through it. Inanimate objects didn't 'think they could'. Children's books were stupid.

Meanwhile, Ruby was completely and totally out of it.

"Are you gonna read us a story?" She asked, moving to sit up on the edge of the bed. The heiress pushed her back down.

"No. Look at the pictures in your magazine. And don't mess them up- these are checked out on my account," Weiss had a feeling she was definitely going to regret that, but for now there wasn't much she could do about it. She flicked her white ponytail back out of the way over her shoulder and flipped through a few more of the picture books.

"How about this one," she passed Blake a board book about a dog with pointed ears and a disproportionately large head. Or was it supposed to be a cat? She couldn't tell, but it seemed like the one most likely to survive Yang's drool.

"...Sure," Blake stared at the book's monochromatic cover, looking slightly put out. _See Ursa Run._ She squinted her eye at the... thing, running happily across a stark white background. Had the illustrator for this book ever actually seen a Grimm in person?

Weiss deposited the rest of her armload of children's books on one of the desks against the side wall, oblivious to Blake's disappointment. She still thought that it was an odd choice of reading material. Not everyone had the same tastes, however, and her teammate was going to be loopy on pain meds pretty much for the duration of her waking hours so Weiss didn't question it.

Blake sighed and was about to thank Weiss for the fine piece of literature when an ear-splitting growl suddenly emanated from her stomach. Blake turned several shades of scarlet. "So... what are we doing about lunch?"

The heiress turned, pausing, "I suppose... I could go get some toast or something from the cafeteria." And leave them unsupervised for who-knew-how-long. She narrowed her eyes. Ruby had her face down on the blanket, mumbling, possibly asleep, her arms splayed on top of the magazine she'd been reading. Yang seemed content to cling to Blake like some kind of over-sized, horizontal koala.

Well, things seemed fairly quiet, and she was hungry, now that Blake mentioned it. Maybe leaving for a few minutes would be fine. She raised her brow at the dark-haired Faunus and crossed her arms, "You aren't going to do anything stupid, are you? When the pills take effect, I mean."

Blake glowered up at the heiress. Forget a cactus, Weiss officially had the bedside manner of a Grimm. She rolled her eyes, wincing internally at how the action unexpectedly made the room spin. "I'll be fine, thanks."

The icy heiress snapped shut the case of antitoxin, sealed the used syringes in a puncture-proof bag that had been included with the kit, and checked to make sure the caps on the pills were screwed on tight. Next on the list was a convenient way to transport food from the cafeteria.

She took Ruby's black and red book bag from the bedpost of her precariously strung bunk and dumped the contents on the floor by the baseboard. Emptying her own book bag would have taken a lot of time, after all- it was very highly organized- and she wanted be gone and back as quickly as possible before Ruby or Yang woke up. She would just shove her partner's mess of crumpled notebooks, papers, and candy bar wrappers back into the bag when she was finished with it.

Shouldering the now empty bag, Weiss strode to the door, with a last few words to Blake, "If I come back and the room has gotten wrecked or blown up or something, I'm blaming you."

Blake threw one last glower at Weiss's back as she shut the door behind her, letting the cardboard children's book drop gently onto her face with another sigh. It didn't look any more appealing up close. She closed her eyes, brows twitching. How on earth had Weiss understood "picture book" to mean books fit for a two year old?

The cutesy Ursa illustration slinked away into hiding as the book slowly slid off of Blake's face and onto the bit of mattress behind her. She should have been more specific. Art book - _that_ would've been tough to misinterpret…

Amber eyes drifted over to Ruby, sprawled out and unmoving on Weiss's bed, then down to the sleeping face of the brawler pressed against her. She couldn't help the small smile that pulled at her lips. Maybe the sisters had the right idea. Blake shut her eyes and took the chance to relax, allowing herself to doze for a bit.

Dozing led to outright sleeping, and for a good while the room fell into a peaceful silence.

Something tickled Blake's nose, dragging her from her dreamless sleep. Fighting the urge to growl, she opened her eyes to glance at the time… only to find amethyst staring right back at her. She started and froze. How long had Yang been awake?

"This blanket is really tight..."

The brawler's eyes seemed distinctly clearer than they had in days. Blake wondered if Yang's pain medication was finally wearing off. Maybe it would be safe...

"Hang on." Blake helped her partner sit up before loosening the curtains around the blonde. Finally freed from her fabric prison, Yang stretched her arms out and bared her teeth in an enormous yawn before turning to gaze at Ruby, passed out on Weiss's bed.

She stared for what felt like a very long time before finally turning away, seemingly satisfied that her little sister was alive and breathing. Without so much as a word, Yang flopped back down on her side and stared into space.

Blake blinked in surprise - she fully expected to get dragged back down as well, but as she examined her partner more closely, she noticed a distant look in those amethyst eyes. In fact, the brawler looked downright... sad.

Blake stared down at her sulking partner, unsure how to proceed. She wasn't terribly experienced in trying to offer comfort. What would Ruby do? What would Yang herself do? A terrible idea struck her then, probably spurred by the pain medication slowly taking effect. Resolved to at least try, Blake stretched out on the mattress on her side, propping her head up on one hand to better face her partner.

"Hey." Her lips quirked as Yang glanced up in her direction. "Why the... Long face?"

Amethyst eyes widened in shock, paired with a half-smile. Yang's secret weakness - puns. "You did _not_ just-"

"I did." Blake's smile softened. "Now tell me what's bothering you."

Yang stared up at her partner as if seeing her in a new light. With a muffled groan, she covered her face with her hands and went silent. Seconds dragged into minutes, and Blake began to wonder if Yang had fallen asleep again. If she hadn't been so intently focused, she may have missed her partner's whispered words.

"I was the first."

"I'm sorry?" Blake tilted her head.

"The first to get taken down." The blonde continued in hushed tones, clenching her fists and staring down at them as if they had betrayed her. Anger flashed in her eyes. "I wasn't able to help Ruby, I wasn't able to help defeat that giant rat… lord… whatever _thing_..." She brought her hands to her face, dragging them downwards to stare into space through her bandaged fingers. "I was the weakest link."

Blake clenched her teeth at the heated frustration dripping from Yang's every word. This was not the answer she'd been expecting. She shot a desperate glance at Ruby - still asleep. No help there. She would have to deal with this herself somehow. Blake wrestled her features into a neutral expression, gazing down at her unmoving partner.

Yang wasn't one for blithe reassurances, the brawler valued words as direct as her fists. A straightforward approach would probably work best. Blake placed a gentle hand on her partner's shoulder, taking care to choose her words carefully, tone even and relaxed.

"Unless you've forgotten, you went down taking a blow for me."

Yang's eyes snapped to her partner's, unreadable amethyst searching for something in the cool amber gaze that met her. "Yeah, but-"

"And to be fair," Blake continued matter-of-factly, "you fought an entire horde by yourself for who even knows how long. Probably hours."

A long pause followed as Yang continued to stare, ever searching. Slowly, a hesitant smile began to work its way across the blonde brawler's face. "Yeah - it was pretty tiring."

Blake threw her partner an encouraging grin. "You took enough damage to drop like, five huntresses."

Yang grinned right back. "Yeah, I guess I did!"

"You totally did."

Yang's eyes narrowed playfully. "You know, for a supposed moody loner you're pretty good at this whole cheering-people-up thing."

Blake hid a giggle behind her hand. She wasn't sure if it was Yang's infectious smile or the pain medication finally kicking in, but she could feel her inhibitions slipping.

She found that she didn't care.

"I know something that'll cheer you up even more."

Curiosity sparked in Yang's eyes. "Yeah? Like what?" The brawler's heart nearly stopped when Blake reached past her for something from the bookcase, bringing their faces mere inches apart. She caught her breath only when Blake pulled back again, brandishing a pack of colored markers with a devious smirk.

"Like, doodling on Ruby's face while she's asleep."

Yang's face slowly split into an ear-to-ear grin. "I like the way you think."

Uncapped markers in hand, neither of them spared a single thought about Weiss as they descended upon their team leader. Neither of them kept track of the time, either.

What felt like ages later, Blake and Yang stood back, admiring their joint work of art.

Yang wiped a fake tear from her eye. "It's beautiful."

Blake nodded stoically. "Yes, it is."

A veritable rainbow of shapes and colors covered Ruby's peacefully sleeping face. The younger girl now sported bushy purple eyebrows, a pink handlebar mustache, a green monocle, and more hearts and stars and shapes than should have been humanly possible to fit on one person's face.

To top it all off, the portrait of an angry blue bunny that looked suspiciously like a certain icy heiress hopped across her forehead. That had been Blake's personal masterpiece.

Yang grinned at her partner in crime. "Weiss is going to kill us."

"What if we hide the evidence?" Blake took one of the magazines from the pile, opened it, and placed it gently over Ruby's face.

"I like it. But she's still going to kill us."

"...Not if she has to find us first."

Amethyst eyes sparkled in delight. "I _really _like the way you think."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This is only the beginning. :3**

**Hugs,**  
><strong>Defenestrator<strong>


	2. So far so good

**A/N: Happy Saturday! For once I'm not posting the chapter in the middle of the night like a terrible person! As always, thank you guys SO much for reading and for the reviews and for pretty much being all around fabulous. **

**Hugs,**  
><strong>Defenestrator<strong>

* * *

><p>Green eyes stared down at even greener grapes. The cafeteria was awash with noise as always, but Pyrrha couldn't help but feel as though their usual table was far quieter than what she was used to. Practically all of team RWBY was stuck in their dorm recovering, and Ren was likewise stuck in their own dorm room, with only Nora for company. At least Jaune was still here, sitting beside her and demolishing a steak.<p>

Pyrrha glanced in Jaune's direction, spotting Weiss in the distance headed their way. The heiress was carrying Ruby's bag. Pyrrha smiled. How sweet - they were already sharing personal items. She leaned in close to whisper in Jaune's ear as Weiss neared their table, "Remember, be discreet. Act natural."

"Huh?" The blond swordsman looked up from sawing off another strip of overcooked meat. It was like trying to cut through the leather that wrapped his sword's hilt. In retrospect, getting the cafeteria steak had been a pretty bad idea, but he just hadn't been able to resist.

He followed Pyrrha's eyes to the approaching heiress, "Oh, right, natural. I can do that," to prove his claim, he dropped his knife and waved to the white-haired fencer, "Hey Weiss! Uh... nice weather we're having." the sky outside was gray and dreary, and the walkways were damp with drizzle. "I mean, it's just so... normal... am I right?"

Pyrrha quietly stomped on Jaune's foot underneath the table. He was being about as discreet as a whale in a pile of kittens.

Weiss spared him an incredulous glance as she slipped Ruby's bag from her shoulder and set it on the bench along with a thermos of the cafeteria's soup of the day. She'd been hoping for chicken, but it was some kind of watered down vegetable-miso instead. Not ideal, but it would have to do.

"Pyrrha, do you know if they've cleared out all the breakfast supplies yet?" Weiss straightened her uniform out of habit as she reviewed her mental list. Soup: check. Toast: un-check. Plus she needed to get something for herself, and it occurred to her that Blake might want something other than plain toasted bread if she was still lucid. She'd make her a sandwich, or something.

The red-headed warrior smiled apologetically, "I believe there are still some fruits left."

"Just fruit?" Weiss scowled in the direction of the food line. Toast would really be better.

Pyrrha eyed the thermos sitting next to Ruby's bag. "You must be bringing food back for Ruby. That's very sweet of you." Pyrrha offered a genuine smile to the heiress. "Just like Nora - she's been bringing Ren all of his favorite foods as well."

Weiss blinked at the news about Lie Ren. Apparently he was well enough to eat. "He's taking a course of antitoxin, right?" She briefly wondered if that wild girl he was partnered with was the one giving him his shots. That would be unfortunate. "Has he been experiencing any side-effects? Just so I know what to look out for with Ruby and Yang."

"Well, he hasn't been moving around a lot," Jaune rubbed the top of his boot, a rueful grimace on his face, "...but that's probably because of the, er, you know. Hole in his chest. So... maybe that doesn't count."

Pyrrha nodded. "Nora really has been taking great care of him, though. It's easy to see how much she cares." Warm green eyes locked with blue, bolstered by a knowing smile. "Don't worry Weiss, I'm sure you'll take great care of Ruby."

"Um. Thanks?" Weiss frowned a little at the sudden, intense eye-contact. Why was Pyrrha acting so strangely today? And why was she persist in talking about Nora when she had clearly inquired about side-effects?

The heiress felt a confused and somewhat-frustrated blush creeping up on her, so she shifted her attention back to the task at hand and scooped up Ruby's book bag, "I'm... going to go speak with the kitchen staff. Could you watch this soup for a minute?" she turned and strode down the aisle between tables almost before she'd finished speaking, leaving the thermos on the tabletop.

"Well, she seemed... about the same as usual?" Jaune looked to his partner for her opinion once Weiss was out of earshot.

Pyrrha's smile widened at Weiss's flustered departure. "Yes. It doesn't look like she's ready to talk to us about it yet." Her heart went out to the heiress. She was well familiar with the tricky, precarious nature of having feelings for a teammate. Pyrrha turned her gaze back to Jaune, warm green meeting quizzical blue. She nudged him with her elbow, smiling affectionately. "You aren't jealous, are you?"

"Jealous?" Jaune put a hand over his heart, feigning horror, "Me?" he gave a half-hearted laugh and poked at his food, "Of course not. Though it is kind of too bad... I guess this means they're _both_ taken, huh?" He abruptly realized who he was talking to and tried to backtrack, "Not that either one of them would've been interested in... I mean, not that I'd be interested, just, you know, er...because... they... are..." Jaune reached blindly for words, "not into guys? And I'm not into girls who aren't into guys. Except as friends. Or, you know, partners, in case you're not into guys. I mean, because it would be totally fine if you weren't and I... uh...," he cringed and picked up his fork, "... I'm just going to stop talking and finish this."

Pyrrha grinned and opted to say nothing, sparing her less-than-eloquent partner from further embarrassment.

On the other end of the cafeteria near the tables where the toasters and soda machines were, Weiss got to work. She explained to the kitchen staff what she needed and they gave her a whole loaf of cheap sliced bread, half of which she sent through the conveyor-belt style bagel toaster, and the other half of which she used for peanut butter sandwiches. They would keep well if no one was up to eating them right away, and they didn't need to be refrigerated. On a whim, she made a tuna sandwich as well. If Blake didn't want it, Weiss would eat it herself (though tuna was not her preferred sandwich type).

Wrapping these supplies individually using the abundance of napkins provided next to the straws by the soda machine, she finished packing Ruby's book bag, picked up an apple from the bowl of fruit left from breakfast, and was ready to go.

Weiss needed to stop back by the table where Jaune and Pyrrha were sitting to retrieve the thermos of soup. Midway through the crowded sea of tables, she paused, thinking over what the red-haired warrior had said before. It seemed like she was concerned for Ruby for some reason or another. Maybe... because Weiss was the one looking after her?

All that talk about her taking care of the younger girl... Weiss supposed she had been a little hard on Ruby. She wasn't exactly used to being in charge of semi-invalids, but... well... she was trying. She felt that frustrated blush return as she hiked the bag up on her shoulder, resolving to be more patient with her team while they were recovering.

The heiress crossed the rest of the busy cafeteria to the table.

"Thanks," she snatched the thermos and shot Pyrrha a determined glare, "and I'll have you know that I will be taking _great_ care of Ruby, so you can stop worrying about her and focus on your own teammate."

Pyrrha blinked, momentarily startled by the fierce declaration. Her smile then returned full force. "She is certainly in good hands." Her eyes drifted to the side as her thoughts drifted to Ruby's older sister. Yang gave off a fiercely protective vibe, and according to Blake she didn't yet know about the situation... Brows furrowed in worry, Pyrrha brought her gaze back to Weiss. "Just, be careful around Yang, ok?"

"Please, she's nothing I can't handle," Weiss rolled her eyes as she turned to leave. Nothing she couldn't handle as long as she stayed out of reach, anyway. The pain medications had really made her clingy.

The heiress picked up her pace as she exited the doors of the cafeteria. The chances of everything being exactly the way she left it hovered very close to zero. She would just assess the damage and deal with it when she got there.

Pyrrha watched her go, all smiles. "I think those two are going to be just fine."

* * *

><p>"This is... actually kind of boring."<p>

"...Yes."

Blake shifted against the shower tiles, sitting with her head resting on her knees. Yang shifted beside her, sitting stretched out as much as possible in the small space. After realizing that Yang couldn't walk more than a few feet without beginning to heave from pain, they had decided to "hide" in a bathroom shower stall.

It honestly wasn't the best hiding place in the world, but there weren't many other options in these sparse dorm rooms. Not unless they wanted to hide underneath a bed or something, which was a terrible idea given Yang's condition.

In a twist of fortune, the cool shower tiles actually soothed the brawler's back, eliciting a string of contented sighs that in turn elicited small smiles from Blake, glad to see her partner relaxing. A quick glance at the frosted glass door gave her a muddled view of the rest of the bathroom and the open door that lead to the bedrooms.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Blake knew the pain meds were messing with her perception of time, but it really did feel like they'd been sitting here for hours. Weiss should be back soon. She would find Ruby and... Blake lifted her head suddenly. Weiss and Ruby. Her visible eye glimmered with hazy mischief, wrought by the medication. She still needed to tell Yang...

Blake slipped an arm around Yang's shoulders and pulled her into a secretive huddle. "Did you know... there's a rumor going around school."

Yang tilted her head towards Blake, clearly interested. "Yeah? About what?"

"A rumor about Weiss and Ruby."

Yang's eyes darkened almost imperceptibly at the idea of someone spreading rumors about her little sister. "... What kind of rumor?"

"...That they're together."

"They're WHAT." Yang tore away from Blake and scrambled to her feet, making straight for the shower door with eyes blazing red. "If Weiss has laid one single _finger _on my little sister I'm going to-"

"Yang!" Blake scrambled to her feet as well, suddenly fearful for the heiress's life. Adrenaline momentarily cleared her head - it was time to switch tactics before someone ended up dead. She grabbed the raging brawler's shoulder, gently pulling her back into the shower. "It's just a rumor, it could be nothing."

Yang rounded on her partner, still clearly livid. In retrospect, it might not have been the best idea to bring this up while squeezed into a shower together. Blake instantly switched to Plan C. "Honestly, I think it's kind of cute."

Rage promptly morphed into confusion. "What."

Bingo. Blake pressed on, "It's very cute. Think about it - it's classic. A seemingly insurmountable rivalry that blossoms into heartfelt romance, _forged _through the _heat of battle_."

"...Okay..." Yang raised an eyebrow, eyes officially cooled to amethyst once more. "I'll give you that. But come on... _Weiss?_" She crossed her arms. "Ruby could do _so _much better."

"Better than the heiress to a multi-million lien Dust Company?" One with questionable business practices - but she left that part out.

Blake could practically hear Yang's gears grind to a halt. They stared at each other in silence.

Slowly, surely, the blonde brawler grinned.

Blake grinned right back.

* * *

><p>Outside the room, Weiss fished for her door key, moderately relieved that there was in fact still a door to unlock. After that exploding cake prank those few weeks back, she really wouldn't put anything past the more 'free spirited' half of the team. Even if they were currently drugged out of their minds.<p>

She pushed the door open and stepped inside, eyes narrowing slightly. Ruby was conked out on her bed, probably drooling on that magazine draped over her face. Blake and Yang, however, were nowhere to be seen. Half of the red curtain lay crumpled across the mattress on the floor.

Weiss glanced around the room, ascertaining that the pair of teammates had in fact disappeared and weren't just hiding up on Ruby's bunk or something. Though how they would get up there with Yang in her current state was beyond her. How had she even gone anywhere in the first place? Had Blake dragged her away?

"Ugh, I knew something like this would happen," Weiss set the bag of food supplies down next to Ruby's bed, noting that everyone's pill containers were in place and the throw-up trashcan was empty. Then she looked at Ruby and her heart jumped with a very small amount of panic. She was breathing, right?

Weiss stood beside the bed and watched for a second.

The younger girl's chest rose and fell evenly in sleep.

Of course she was breathing. Why wouldn't she be? The heiress chided herself and moved to rescue the magazine covering her partner's face. She really should have borrowed Ruby's card to check out these materials.

When she lifted the weapons magazine, she froze, momentarily stunned by the sheer number of drawings on her partner's face. Stars and huge, comical eyebrows and... was that a rabbit? "Of all the childish, idiotic, absolutely _ridiculous_..." she put a hand to her temple in an effort to still her oncoming headache.

Quietly, carefully, hoping Weiss was distracted enough by her own ranting, Yang emerged from the bathroom and crept up on the fuming heiress. Closer… closer… inches away… She pounced, crushing Weiss in a hug from behind and sending the both of them sprawling on top of Ruby.

"Welcome back Weissssssssss!"

Hidden by the brawler's cheerful greeting, a camera shutter quietly clicked behind them. Blake smiled down at her scroll, typed a short message, and hit send.

* * *

><p>Heading back down the hall to their last class of the day, Pyrrha and Jaune were deep in the middle of a scintillating conversation.<p>

"...and that's why baguettes make fantastic beginner's practice swords."

_Bleep!_

Further explanation interrupted, Pyrrha glanced down at her scroll. A message from Blake? With a picture attached no less... She opened the message, and stared wide-eyed at a photo of Yang, Weiss, and Ruby in a dog pile on the heiress's bed. The message underneath was brief.

_Yang took the news well. _

Pyrrha positively beamed. She handed her scroll to Jaune to let him see. "It looks like things are going well!" She put a hand to her chin. "Maybe we should throw them a party."

"You've been talking to Nora a lot, haven't you?" Jaune squinted at the picture. Did Ruby have a pink mustache? "Anyway, it looks like they're already having a pretty good time."

Pyrrha flushed slightly at Jaune's comparison. "I suppose Nora and I have discussed this at length, yes." Shifting her weight, she folded her arms. "You may be right though, it might be too soon for a party. We still don't even know how quiet Weiss wants to keep all of this."

Pyrrha put a hand to her chin once more, looking pensive. "The heiress to an organization as large as Schnee Dust Company taking on a romantic partner would be huge news for tabloids."

"We could always swing past after class. They're probably going stir crazy, cooped up in their room anyway," Jaune suggested as they crossed the threshold into their history lecture room, "And yeah, I guess that is the sort of thing those columns go for. Ooh, did you read the one about the largest cat in the world? I saw it in the grocery store this one time and it looked completely fake like it was made out of felt or something but apparently it was real."

Pyrrha tilted her head in fascination as she sat next to Jaune at their usual spot near the center of the classroom and pulled out her notebook. "I wonder if it gets mistaken for a lion," she thought aloud. The image of an obese warrior-cat with a lion's mane in fierce battle armor came to mind. Smiling to herself, she went silent as class began.

* * *

><p>"<em>Yang Xiao Long let go of me this instant,<em>" Weiss shrieked, struggling to get out of the brawler's bear-hug. Her hair fell over Ruby's face in a tangle of white.

The younger girl groaned as the combined weight of her wrestling teammates crushed the air out of her lungs. Muzzy with painkillers, she swiped the heiress's hair out of her face, "Urg, ow, guys, hey, get off, that tickles."

Blake stood back and smiled at the mayhem. Medication hazed thinking process or not, she knew Yang's plan of "let's hug Weiss and maybe she'll forgive us for the markers" was doomed from the start, but it certainly never hurt to try. Unless perhaps Weiss killed one of them. She certainly looked as though she was about to.

Yang felt a gentle tug at the back of her bright orange tank top.

"Yang, you're crushing them."

"Oh," the brawler blinked down at Weiss and Ruby. She stood first, briefly forgetting to let go and bringing the heiress up along with her, then blinked again and unceremoniously dropped Weiss from her arms back onto the bed. She returned to Blake's side, sporting a sleepy lopsided smile. "Sorry about that."

Weiss landed across her partner's lap, hair a mess and coat askew. She propped herself up on one elbow, pointing at Yang, "_You._ Get back into bed and don't ever _ever _do that again."

"Okay, ow_,_" Ruby grimaced, trying to shift to get Weiss's weight off her injured leg. "_Ow._"

The heiress noticed after a second and jumped off, nearly cracking her head on the underside of Ruby's bunk. Terrific. She leaned back over to inspect the bandage. If that wound had opened again...

"Don't think I've forgotten about you," the irate heiress shot a glare at the highly-amused Faunus. This was probably all her fault. Maybe even her idea. And if Weiss could ever prove it, she was going to make her miserable for at least a week after she was off her medication.

But for now, she was going to be patient.

She straightened her hair and tugged her clothes back into place. "There's food in Ruby's bag. It's just toast and sandwiches. Don't make yourselves sick or anything. And Ruby, let me see your leg."

Weiss took a look at her team leader's face and felt her color rising again. Priorities, she told herself. Leg wound first, marker removal second.

Yang slinked away to her mattress on the floor, kneeling at the other side of Weiss's bed rather than lying down. Bandaged fingers reached out and stroked gently through Ruby's hair. "Hey little sis. Don't you worry about a thing. Weiss is going to take great care of you. I will personally see to it that she treats you right." The brawler leveled a gaze at Weiss that seemed to declare "or else."

Weiss met Yang's gaze evenly, still furious after the unexpected manhandling. And what was that about her taking care of Ruby? First Pyrrha, now Yang. Did no one think she could look after her team leader for a couple of days?

Blake appeared behind her partner holding Ruby's bag, her scroll discreetly hidden behind its bulging sides filled to the brim with sandwiches. "Yang, Weiss is right. If you aren't hungry, you should go back to bed."

Yang reluctantly tore her gaze from Weiss and herself from Ruby. "Fffffiiiiinnnnnneeeee. I am a little sore anyway." She stretched out face down on the mattress, smiling as she felt Blake sit right beside her. Focused amber eyes search intently through the pile of sandwiches. Blake smelled tuna, and she was going to _find it_.

"Hmph," Weiss scooted back a little on top of the bed covers and rolled up the edge of Ruby's shorts to take a better look at the thick, gauze bandaging. It seemed clean, which really only meant that she wasn't bleeding freely. Weiss dusted off her hands, making a mental note to redress the wound in a little while. For now, she procured a washcloth from the bathroom and tipped some rubbing alcohol onto it. "Here, let me see your face."

Ruby scrunched her nose up and ducked as the heiress started on her forehead. "Yuck, that smells awful."

Weiss followed her with the washcloth, "Well your face _looks_ awful. Hold still so I can fix it." The alcohol made the marker smear so the pink mustache scrawled across Ruby's face blurred into a wide stroke of mangled color before it came off.

"There's something on my face?" Ruby's color-streaked brow furrowed.

"Yyyyyes," Vandalism. Absolute vandalism. Weiss darted an acerbic look at the pair of teammates digging through the sandwich bag. When she got most of the marker off, she shook out the cloth, "There. Let me just rinse this so you don't smell like alcohol for the rest of the day."

When she crossed the room again, this time with a washcloth soaked in warm water, Ruby was staring at the grey light from the window, silver eyes bleary. "Is it morning?"

"No, you dolt, it's-," Weiss caught herself. She sat back on the edge of the bed, tucking her legs up so she could turn to face her partner better, and adopted a less snappish tone, "... it's the middle of the afternoon." The others seemed focused on eating. Or sleeping.

Weiss stole a glance at Ruby's confused expression. She really wasn't very good at this. "Do you... want something to eat? I brought some soup. Here, let me finish this too," she put a hand on Ruby's shoulder to hold her still while she wiped the last of the marker and alcohol smell off her face.

Shifting a bit to stretch her legs out, Blake quietly watched her teammates from behind the exquisite tuna sandwich she'd finally located, which she had already nearly finished. She would definitely have to thank Weiss for this delicious meal later. Her lips quirked in a small smile. She had to admit, Weiss really was trying her best, and to her credit so far none of them were dead or re-injured yet.

One lone amber eye shifted between Weiss and Ruby, the former gently removing the last of their beautiful artwork from the latter's face.

"Blech," Ruby wiped her face with her wrist, pushing away the washcloth, "I'm clean, I'm clean."

"Right, fine," Weiss rolled her eyes and pushed the cloth into her partner's hands while she got up to retrieve the thermos of soup.

Amorous rumors aside, it never failed to amaze her how the younger girl somehow managed to bring out a much softer side from the usually icy heiress. It really was... so... very...

"...cute."

Weiss heard a sound and noticed Blake's amber gaze. She bristled a little at the idea that the other girl had been watching, "What did you say?"

Blake's eyes widened a fraction. She hadn't really meant to say that out loud. This mental fog from the medication was more dangerous than she thought. She backpedaled, "I... said thanks... for the sandwiches. Tuna is my favorite." She stuffed the last bit of sandwich in her mouth before she let anything else slip. Still lying beside her and apparently still awake, Blake felt her partner stifle a snicker.

"... you're welcome," Weiss gave Blake a suspicious look before she handed the thermos to Ruby, who insisted that she could drink soup from a cup by herself.

Weiss did another survey of the room. The contents of Ruby's bag still littered the floor at the end of the bed. The trashcan in the middle of the floor remained miraculously empty. Blake and Yang seemed at least somewhat settled down.

With no classes or activities due to everyone's injuries, the afternoon was an open book: one she intended to take advantage of, if her duties to her teammates allowed. She set the food out on top of the bookcase under the window in a neat row: plain toast on one end, sandwiches on the other. The apple she set over on her desk.

"Is there anything I can get anyone?" she asked as she gathered the mess of Ruby's papers off the floor, smoothing and organizing them as she went, "Otherwise, I'm going to do some studying."

Yang made a dismissive noise, slightly waving one hand. Blake shook her head slowly, "I'm fine, thank you." The pain medication was finally starting to take its toll, and after a full morning of mischief, the faunus wanted nothing more than a solid nap. Blake started to get up to return to her bunk, but stopped when she felt a hand on her arm.

She looked down to see Yang sporting puppydog eyes that could rival Ruby's. Blake froze, feeling a flush creep up her neck. Her partner's desire for hugs was insatiable. With the slightest hint of an eye roll to signal acceptance, she allowed herself to be pulled down into another crushing hug. Blake sighed, muffled somewhat by Yang's mane of hair. At least it was comfortable. Together, the troublemakers drifted to sleep.

Ruby sprawled across the heiress's bedspread for a few minutes, picking out designs in the wood on the underside of the bed suspended over her. She found a fire sword, a dragon on a cloud, and a couple of skinny beowolves before she followed the others into dreamland.

Weiss listened for a little while, alert for any changes in their conditions. Then she set out pencil and paper and cracked open the first of her library books: Field Treatment of Grimm-related Injuries and Other Afflictions.

Next time her teammates encountered something out of their league and got hurt (because it would certainly happen), she was at least going to be able to patch them up a little.

* * *

><p>The afternoon hours marched on. Outside in Beacon's courtyard voices called to one another as classes were let out and students rushed to dinner. Weiss didn't pay them any mind as she continued to add to her growing collection of notes, complete with diagrams and page number references.<p>

She'd long since discarded the bandage she'd been wearing; her aura had reduced the gash to a tender sliver of pink along the blade of her hand. A day or two more and it would be entirely healed. She couldn't expect as much from Ruby and her sister's more serious injuries, of course, and the Grimms' poison apparently interfered with the natural recovery abilities associated with one's aura. She sighed and shifted the napkin-wrapped remains of her apple to the edge of the desk and kept working.

Ruby wasn't sure exactly what had woken her, or how long she had been awake. She shifted onto her side and watched Weiss take down notes from a thick book with a blue cover. Her thoughts were fluid and very hard to hold onto for more than a couple of seconds. Like mist, or really slippery fish, or something. Ruby rubbed her eyes with her fist. Ugh. "Hey, Weiss?"

The heiress turned in her seat, shifting her attention from the book to her partner, "Yes, Ruby?"

"What are you doing?" the younger girl's voice came out groggy with disuse.

"I'm studying," was the succinct reply.

Ruby picked at the edge of the bandage on her leg. "How come?"

"Because that's what you do when you're in school." This explanation was met with no response, so Weiss slid back to face her desk. She had flipped another page and started copying an illustration of a death stalker's stinger when Ruby's voice broke her concentration again.

"Hey, Weiss?"

She gripped her pencil a little harder, "Yes?"

"Do you think you could maybe read some out loud?"

"What? Why?" Weiss turned again, frowning at her partner.

"Well, I mean, you don't have to, but it's just kind of boring lying here and I can't figure out which way the letters are going in this," she gestured vaguely; the weapons magazine lay open and somewhat crumpled near her knees, "and I like your voice when you're not mad and thought that if you're not mad, uh, maybe you might read some?" Ruby quirked the whole rambling sentence into a question and followed it with, "You're not mad, are you?"

Weiss watched her partner grimace as she pushed herself up so she could sit against the headboard. She rolled the pencil between her fingertips, a little uncertain of what to do with the unusual request, "No, I'm not mad. But the others are asleep."

"You could read quietly," Ruby all but pleaded in a very small, extra quiet voice, and, well, that sealed the deal. Weiss flushed, set her pencil aside, and squared up her notes.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt," she grumbled as she picked up her chair and moved it over next to the bed, "Only for a little while, though."

Ruby slid down till she was comfortable and waited, patient and foggy with medicine while the heiress got situated.

Weiss hesitated, holding up the field-treatment book, "You seriously just want me to read this out loud?"

"Mmn?" Ruby blinked and slurred out, "What? Yeah, whatever you want. Just for a little while?"

Weiss set her jaw for a second. This was... kind of embarrassing. But her partner was sick and really who cared? Not Weiss. Not at all. With any luck, Ruby would be asleep again in two minutes anyway. So the heiress set the book on the edge of the bed, took a deep breath and started where she'd left off.

She leaned a little forward over the book so she could read softly and still be heard, "An alternative to the pressure immobilization technique is a constriction band wrapped a few inches closer to the heart than the bite marks on the bitten limb. This should be applied tightly enough to only occlude the superficial veins..."

Ruby closed her eyes and listened, not so much to the words as to the even cadence of her partner's speech.


	3. Weiss's 'intentions'

Once again the cafeteria bustled with students finishing up their meals, and once again, Pyrrha felt their table severely lacking its usual lively nature.

She picked at the remainder of her dinner, shoving grains of rice about on her plate. Jaune was great company of course, but she found she missed the banter of the girls from team RWBY. She even missed Nora and Ren's antics. Well, mostly Nora's antics. Ren just sort of took everything in stride.

Bright green eyes scanned the crowd for Weiss. She had expected the heiress to come procure dinner for her teammates, but the dining hall was nearly closed, and she hadn't shown. What could be keeping her? Red brows scrunched together in worry. Hopefully one of the girls hadn't taken a turn for the worse.

Pyrrha briefly considered leaving immediately to check on them. She then recalled the picture message in her scroll. Everyone had seemed well enough in the photo. Maybe... things had gone _very _well. Pyrrha froze in place, flushing scarlet, her face red enough to match her hair. Maybe they... shouldn't interrupt.

A noisy clank from Jaune setting his silverware down snapped her back to reality. She shook her head. No, no that couldn't possibly be it. Yang and Blake were right there too. What was she even _thinking._ Pyrrha put her face in her hands and rested her elbows on the table, mortified at herself.

Whatever the reason, it seemed like Weiss would be missing dinner, so there was no sense in waiting around. One green eye peeked through her fingers at her partner. "Jaune, let's go check on Nora and Ren."

Jaune fumbled his knife. He'd been a little too enthusiastic about pretending to cut that watermelon on the other table in half.

"Uh, yeah, sure, good idea," he smoothed his blond hair with one hand, "Now that you mention it, I haven't seen Nora all day. Snow Angel never showed up either. Think we should take them some food?" he gave Pyrrha a funny look, "Is... something wrong with your face?"

"N-no, my face is perfectly normal." Pyrrha stood suddenly, gathering her tray. She smiled down at Jaune, cheeks still slightly pink. "Let's bring them back some dinner rolls."

* * *

><p>What was once a light drizzle from a gray sky finally erupted into a heavy storm. Cracks of thunder and flashes of lighting accompanied the pouring rain, illuminating the darkened dorm room of team JNPR. Stretched out on a bed and propped up with a mountain of pillows, Lie Ren carefully studied the chessboard right beside him.<p>

Nora had him on the defensive, but he was fairly certain he could find a way to cut through her offence. His eyes danced over the pieces, calculating, strategizing. Though he would never volunteer this information, this was one of his favorite traditions.

Ever since he was little, he had always been fond of chess, but Nora never wanted to sit still long enough to play a game so he would usually end up going along with whatever adventure she had in mind... unless he was sick or injured. It was the only time she would play with him, reluctance at leaving him alone winning out over her constant desire to get up and move.

The corner of Ren's mouth lifted in the ghost of a smile as he examined his partner's scattered pieces on the board. Nora's play style was erratic, unpredictable, much like her fighting style. And yet, beneath her random visage lurked a strong instinct for strategy. It kept him on his toes. She also happened to be ruthless with her rook pieces. Though it wasn't often, Nora was the only one able to best him at the game.

A clap of thunder directly overhead broke his concentration and he turned his head slightly to look out the window, immediately regretting the movement as searing hot pain flooded his limbs. His veins burned with antitoxin, the slightest movement resulting in waves of agony crashing over him. Still, he refused to go back on the pain medication. Pink eyes narrowed as he remembered his first few lucid moments in the infirmary.

Doctors everywhere, some shouting instructions, IV's, injections, then muddled nothingness as the painkillers took effect. His next solid memory was waking in an infirmary bed, hair tied up in countless braids riddled with pink and green ribbons, his nails painted pink and green presumably to match. His only explanation being Nora's, "You said pink and green go well together!" exclaimed with a sparkling smile.

He tried not to think about what other bizarre things he might have said to her in such a drugged up state. He found it far preferable to be 100% cognizant at all times at the price of a bit of pain.

Ren glanced at his partner, sound asleep in a chair next to his bed. Nora had dozed off while waiting for him to make his next move. She was undoubtedly tired from striving to keep him entertained the entire day with song and dance and terrible jokes and everything else under the sun. He smiled. Maybe... he would just let her sleep for now.

A light click from the front door opening caught Ren's attention. He turned, suppressing a grimace at the pain induced by the motion, to see Pyrrha and Jaune enter the room. Pyrrha opened her mouth to say something, but Ren lifted a finger and put it to his lips, flicking his eyes to his still-sleeping partner. His teammates quickly nodded.

Pyrrha tiptoed forward and handed him one of two bags of dinner rolls before tiptoeing back to Jaune. With a parting wave, they left the room, shutting the door behind them as quietly as possible. Ren blinked. He hadn't expected an immediate departure. Where were those two headed? With a mental shrug and a stolen glance at Nora, he returned to examining the chessboard at his side, smiling slightly at the warmth of the bread in his lap.

* * *

><p>Team RWBY's room darkened as the clouds gathered outside. Weiss had just shut her Grimm studies book and was picking up her chair to move back to her desk where she could turn on a lamp without waking her sleeping partner, when an enormous <em>CLAP<em> of thunder broke over the school.

Before she knew what was happening, the heiress found herself tangling with the chair on the floor as she was unceremoniously tackled from behind in a flurry of rose petals.

"Ruby?!" Weiss tried to pry the girl's arms from around her waist, but her partner was already scrambling up, practically on top of her, clutching the sleeve of her uniform. Weiss struggled around to face her, "Get off! What's wrong with you?"

"Where's Professor Goodwitch?" Ruby's silver eyes were fever-bright, flickering with panic in the lightning as she cast about the room, clinging to her bristling partner, "Where's Yang? Are there rats?"

"What? Ruby-" Weiss started, but another peal of thunder rumbled across the sky, and for an instant she saw the crack and flash of colored lightning, the sleek sable and nightmare red of the Grimm rat horde. Her brow rose in alarm as Ruby's energy gave out. She tried to catch the younger girl as she slumped against her, still half-tangled with the chair. "Okay. Come on, Ruby, it's okay. There are no more rats."

Weiss triedd to get her arms around the younger girl to get her back into bed, but was hesitant to try in case it hurt her somehow,

Stifling a yawn, Blake stirred, roused by the relentless thunder and sudden commotion of her teammates.

"What's going on-" a knock on the door cut her soft-spoken question short. Blake glanced over at Weiss's bed, unable to see either of her teammates from her position on the floor, and unable to differentiate their scuffling noises from the torrential rain.

Where had Ruby and Weiss gotten to?

"I guess I'll get it..." she mumbled to no one in particular, disentangling herself from Yang - that girl could sleep through a hurricane - and reluctantly dragging herself away from the brawler's natural warmth to head to the door. She opened it wide, light flooding into their room from the hall.

It was Pyrrha again, this time with Jaune in tow.

Her redheaded classmate stepped forward, holding a bag of what looked to be dinner rolls.

"Blake, how are you? We brought... these... for..." Pyrrha's words ground to a halt as she stared at something over Blake's shoulder. Her face had gone scarlet.

"...What?.." Blake followed Pyrrha's gaze, turning around to see Weiss and Ruby half-lying in a tangled mess of limbs on the floor. "..._ Oh._"

"Hey, guys, what's..." Jaune poked his head around the door to see what had made everyone go so quiet, "Uh... ah..."

Weiss had been so focused on her panicked-and-possibly-hallucinating team leader that she didn't notice the others until light flooded the room and three sets of shocked expressions were focused on her and her partner on the floor. Immediately she tried to extricate herself from both Ruby and the chair.

The dark-haired girl roused a bit and gripped the shoulder of Weiss's jacket again, her words thick and slurred into the front of the heiress's uniform. "Wait, don't go. I'll get Crescent Rose."

"No, let go, get off," Weiss hissed, feeling the others' stares as she tried to pull away. Her face went hot with embarrassment and she was suddenly angry because _why was no one helping?_ but she was also off balance with Ruby hanging off of her and between all that only managed to half-snap, half-stammer, "She's just- the thunder, and- and-"

Pyrrha stammered almost as badly as Weiss, "W-we'll just, go... S-sorry!" she hurriedly thrust the bag of rolls into Blake's arms before pivoting on her heel and making a hasty retreat, dragging Jaune along with her.

Blake stared at the bread briefly before shrugging and shutting the door again. She turned back to the flustered heiress, barely suppressing a smirk "...thunder, huh?"

She hadn't put much stock into the rumor before, but Weiss's reactions were really starting to make her wonder. Before she could say anything more, a low growl cut through the room.

"_Weiss._"

Blake's eyes snapped over to the mattress. She dropped the rolls. Yang was awake.

The hair on the back of Weiss's neck rose at the sound of the brawler's voice. She finally got out of Ruby's grip and backed quickly to her desk as she desperately tried to process everyone's horrified reactions.

Yang slowly advanced on Weiss, murder in her eyes. She paused to kneel by her little sister and gather her up into her arms. Ruby wasn't even awake. Heiress or not, this was _unacceptable. _ She glared up Weiss, eyes flashing crimson. "What do you think you're _doing._"

Blake cringed as her partner's semblance began to spark and flare. Someone was about to die. She was sure of it. "Yang, calm down, let's- let's hear her side of things. I'm sure she has a _perfectly reasonable_ explanation..." she glanced at Weiss with a smile somewhere between hopeful and desperate, "...right?"

"I... think this might be some sort of misunderstanding," Weiss watched Yang's eyes go red. She could feel the heat from the other girl's semblance, and it was making it very difficult to compose herself, "Ruby jumped on me when the storm—just—look, I was _trying _to get her back in bed, but—" she leaning back farther over her desk as Yang advanced, "Can we please talk about this for a minute?"

_In bed?_ Bearing her teeth in a scowl that could send Ursa Majors fleeing, Yang bristled at the heiress's poor choice of words.

Just as the brawler was about to make her move, a peal of thunder shook the windows, and she felt Ruby flinch in her sleep. Flames dissipated and crimson cooled to amethyst as she glanced down at her little sister.

OK... so maybe there was _some _truth to Weiss's story. Still, the heiress was acting suspiciously nervous for such a supposedly harmless infraction. She was definitely going to have a sisterly heart-to-heart with Ruby in the morning... But for now, she would take no chances. Ruby would be staying with her for the night. Yang picked up her sister and leveled on last glare at Weiss, who apparently wanted to _talk_. Sure, she would talk.

"...I've got my eyes on you."

With that, she returned to her makeshift bed on the floor and settled down to sleep, turning her back to her teammates and pulling Ruby into a protective embrace.

Blake let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She went to Weiss's side, put a hand on her shoulder, and whispered, "That… could have been worse. Are you ok?"

Weiss straightened, too stunned to respond. She got the distinct feeling that she had just escaped an early death. Not that her contingency plan of leaping onto the desk and fending her off with children's books would have failed, of course, but still.

She hissed at Blake without looking away from the now slumbering blonde, "It was an _accident_. What—did Yang almost—?" she took a breath, trying to regain some dignity, "I was going to assume that the pills had made you all temporarily more insane than usual, but I'm fairly certain that Pyrrha is not on pain medication."

Blake stared at Weiss. For someone with such acute perception on the battlefield, the heiress could be somewhat obtuse when it came to... other matters. She took one of Weiss's hands and dragged her to the bathroom, shutting the door behind them to allow for at least some measure of privacy. The lights flickered on overhead and Blake leaned against the door, amber eyes locking with blue.

Before she could explain anything, she needed to get one fact straight.

"Weiss. You've always told me that I could talk to you about anything, so I want you to know the reverse is true." She paused, searching for a way to phrase her question as neutrally as possible. "What... are your intentions towards Ruby?"

The heiress, having recovered from being hauled into the enclosed space, whirled on the Faunus, her back to the sink, "My _intentions_? What, like I _planned _to drop her on the floor? Like I don't want her to recover?" All of her earlier embarrassment turned to rigid fury. She drew herself up to her full height, "For your information, I _intend _for her-and for _you_- to be back at full strength as soon as possible so that we can continue our training, though that's not exactly easy to do when half of my team insists on jumping on top of me or _threatening me_ when I'm trying to do the best I can!"

Blake flinched, her bow torquing backwards as her ears flattened at Weiss's admittedly deserved outburst. Heatedly delivered as it was, she now had her answer - romance wasn't even on this girl's radar. Weiss had absolutely no idea what she'd been asking about.

Rumor more-or-less debunked in her mind, Blake raised her hands, mirroring Weiss's earlier placating gesture. "No, Weiss, you _are _doing your best, what I meant was..." She stopped short, suddenly unsure how to proceed.

Telling Weiss about the rumor going around was probably the right thing to do - they'd already agreed to keep no secrets. But would it really be the best thing to do? Blake dropped her gaze to the floor. Teasing Weiss with small pranks was one thing, but she didn't want to embarrass her, or worse, make her even angrier.

More than that, she didn't want to chance making things awkward between Weiss and Ruby, not when they'd just started warming up to each other. But then, there was always the chance that they might just laugh it off... But then there was Yang and Pyrrha, and well, probably all of team JNPR to deal with... Blake put a hand to her head, feeling her headache returning. Vacillation gripped her, and she hesitated.

"What you meant was _what_?" Weiss demanded. She didn't like how Blake had stopped mid-sentence. Was 'her best' so painfully deficient? Obviously that was the case, considering the way Pyrrha and Yang and even the blond idiot had been acting around her.

With the door blocked, the heiress couldn't just storm off someplace to collect herself, so she turned and braced her arms on the white sink counter top, scowling into the mirror. "Look. I knowI'm not really… cut out for this sort of thing. If you really think I'm doing a terrible job, you can just say it."

Blake's head snapped up at Weiss's self-depreciating remark - _ouch_, too quickly. Pain lanced through her head, behind her covered eye, but she paid it no mind as she went to stand beside the confused heiress. Everything else could wait - she couldn't let Weiss beat herself up over something that just wasn't true. One amber eye tried to catch blue in the mirror.

"Actually, I think you're doing a _great _job. Your bedside manner may be lacking, but you've put up with us, out of our minds on pain medication, and haven't killed a single one of us yet." She added with a wink, "You even brought me my favorite sandwich." And _children's books_, but now didn't seem to be the best time to bring that up.

Blake turned slightly to face the real Weiss. "Ruby and Yang are sweethearts, but Ruby can't even open the childproof caps on our medication, and I wouldn't trust Yang with syringes as far as I could throw her. Which... isn't very far." She placed a tentative hand over one of Weiss's own. "If I had to entrust our team's recovery to anyone, it would definitely be you."

"Don't patronize me," Weiss snatched her hand away and faced the Faunus girl. She glared at her for a second, shoulders square, arms crossed. "... not that it hasn't taken a _monumental _amount of self-control to keep from shoving some of you out the window," she lifted her chin a fraction of an inch, "but people don't usually flee the room when someone's doing a 'great job_'._"

"Flee the room?..." _oh._ Blake cringed. Pyrrha and Jaune did leave rather quickly. "That was..." her mind raced, trying to find a way for everyone to save face. Weiss was finally starting to calm down - bringing up the rumor now would just set them back to square one. She was fairly certain she could diffuse this whole situation from the inside if she could just figure out a way to misdirect the heiress for the time being...

Her mind made up, she schooled her features into an expression of confusion and shrugged. "That was probably just... surprise? That _was _a pretty embarrassing position to catch someone in. Anyway, people also don't flee rooms because someone is doing a _terrible job_. Pyrrha would have given you a hand if she thought you needed help."

Blake made a good point, and it would have been convenient to believe her and just get on with her life, but something wasn't adding up. Weiss narrowed her eyes and brushed her snowy white hair back over her shoulder with a flick of her wrist.

"Okay... You trust me to take care of the team. That's just terrific," while she spoke she took two easy steps, which brought her to the door, effectively blocking it as Blake had earlier. "So what made it _so _important for you to drag me in here," she motioned to the surrounding bathroom apparatus, "to ask me about my 'intentions'?"

Checkmate. Blake blanched as Weiss used her own words to back her into a corner. "Because..." She racked her brain for something, anything, but her head hurt, and she was tired. She glanced at herself in the mirror and sighed, defeated. She had been so close, but honesty would probably be best in the long run after all.

Blake quietly resolved to help deal with whatever fallout might occur as she met Weiss's questioning gaze. "Because... there's a rumor going around that you have... _intentions_... towards Ruby. And possibly vice-versa. I wanted to ask to be sure."

Weiss stood stock still against the bathroom door.

"Wait. I... what?" Intentions as in _romantic_ intentions? She felt the color rising in her face. Romantic intentions toward _Ruby Rose_? "Who started this rumor?"

Blake tried to look everywhere but Weiss's eyes. "Technically... you." She chanced a glance at the heiress's rapidly reddening features. "With the CPR... down in the tunnels."

Weiss's hands tightened into fists as she remembered the scene: the damp reek of earth and Grimm, Ruby small and pale and still in the faint blue of Myrtenaster's glow. She'd been terrified- _terrified_- but had stuffed that away long enough to try and breathe for her partner.

"That was- I don't even," the heiress scowled harder to hide her confusion, "She wasn't _breathing_. She didn't have a _pulse_. I didn't want her to _die_. And you... _ugh_," she pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, pacing to the shower. "I can't believe you would tell people something like that."

Blake threw her hands up in defense. "Weiss, I would _never_. I didn't know anything about this until I heard it from Pyrrha." The words were out before she could stop herself. Eyes wide, she hesitated again, trying to push through her worsening headache to think of a way to save her well-intentioned classmate from the metaphorical bus she'd just thrown her under.

"Oh, so you and Pyrrha and Yang all sat down and had a nice chat about my supposed love life?" Weiss shot back even as she put the pieces together. If Blake hadn't started it, then it had to have been Lie Ren. And anything that had to do with Lie Ren got funneled through that loose cannon/motor mouth of a partner of his, which meant that probably half of Beacon knew about this. That explained the looks in the cafeteria; the way Pyrrha had been acting.

"And you believed it?" Now Weiss was furious and blushing and she needed to sit down. Thankfully, the lid on the toilet was closed. She dropped her head in her hands.

If word got back to her father that she was off larking about with a fifteen year old girl... Oh, she was going to murder Lie Ren. And his partner. Actually, she may as well kill everyone on Team JNPR.

"It wasn't like that - we, I thought it was..." Blake stopped herself before she could make things worse. 'I thought it was cute' would probably get her killed, if she wasn't already on Weiss's current hit list. "It was more like a... what if? Ruby is, admittedly, very cute." She took a tentative step towards Weiss. "I didn't want you to feel embarrassed if it was true."

"Well, it isn't," Weiss dropped her hands and took a deep breath, straightening. She would just have to deal with the rumor as it ran its course. She glanced at Blake, "Thank you for telling me. Though next time I'd appreciate knowing what's going on before Yang has me backed up to a desk."

Weiss could only imagine what it must have looked like earlier- she and Ruby on top of each other, tangled in the chair on the floor. Ugh. She rose, dusting off her skirt. "Speaking of Yang, she's probably due for more medication. As are you... and Ruby," she brushed past Blake to the door, "Anyway, we should check on them."

Blake paled visibly. Yang was going to be interesting to sort out. "I can... talk to Yang if you want. She is my partner after all. And probably less likely to deck me on sight."

"It's fine," Weiss slipped back into the storm-darkened room, making a mental note to keep Blake on hand as back-up for the inevitable conversation. Which would hopefully be held at some point when all parties involved were in a non-drug-addled state.

At the moment, rain was sheeting against the heavy windowpanes. Weiss's footsteps were muted on the carpet in the middle of the room as she leaned over the mattress on the floor to check on its occupants. Ruby lay curled on her side in Yang's arms, halfway engulfed in the brawler's mane of wild gold, her head tucked safe under her sister's chin.

Weiss darted her gaze away. Honestly. This was going to take an enormous amount of straightening out. She crossed to her desk and turned on her reading lamp, casting a warm glow of light over her side of the room. The clock informed her that it was already evening. That was unfortunate. "Hmph. The cafeteria's closed by now, I suppose."

Blake crossed the room after Weiss with naturally silent steps. She paused to briefly smile down at her sleeping partner. Yang seemed peaceful enough right now. Maybe she would be less inclined to murder with some solid sleep under her belt. Taking a few steps more, Blake picked up the bag of rolls she'd dropped near the front door.

"Well, Pyrrha did bring us these," she offered, holding the bread up and giving it a sniff. "Smells freshly baked." She made to hand it to Weiss when a particularly bright flash of lightning caught her off guard. The bag dropped to the floor again as pain lanced through Blake's uncovered eye and into the back of her head. Blake put both hands to her face with a muffled groan. She was definitely overdue for pain medication.

Weiss watched the plastic bag slip from her teammate's fingers. She spilled pens out of a mug at her workspace and strode to the bathroom to rinse it out and fill it with water.

"Here," shoving the cup into Blake's hands, the heiress moved to pick up the pain medication from the top of the bookcase. "The favorite sandwich thing was a fluke, by the way. They probably won't even have tuna tomorrow, so get used to peanut butter." She returned from the bookcase, gave Blake a measured look, and dropped two pills into her hand.

Blake returned Weiss's look with equal measure, torn between smiling and scowling. "I wasn't kidding about your bedside manner," she quipped, taking the pills in one shot of water. She glanced at Yang and Ruby, gripping her cup a little tighter. "So, how do you want to do this?"

Weiss's lips quirked up at the corner for a second at the crack about her bedside manner before she got down to business. "I'm thinking the direct approach might be best, depending on how lucid the two of them are," she took another cursory look at the pair on the mattress, frowning, "It would... be ideal if we could get Ruby back into her own bed. I need to redress her leg wound. Yang's injuries could use some attention as well, but..." she wasn't sure if the brawler would be particularly cooperative.

"At the very least, they need antitoxin and another dose of pain pills," she crossed her arms, "and you need to lie down and take a nap or something. You look pale."

Blake crossed her arms as well, mouth set in a slight frown. "I'm fine." Amber eyes drifted from the organized pile of medical supplies on the bookcase down to her sleeping partner. "I have an idea." She glanced at Weiss. "If one of us dies, it's been a pleasure being your teammate."

Before the heiress could respond, Blake strode purposefully past the sleeping pair of sisters towards the bookcase and grabbed one of the rolls of gauze bandages. Taking a deep breath, she returned to Yang's side, leaned down, and grabbed one of the brawler's arms, throwing all of her weight into dragging the blonde into an upright position.

Miraculously, Yang stumbled to her feet, reluctant and half-awake, "Nguh, wha - Blake?"

"Come with me. Hurry." Blake half-dragged her sleep-addled partner into the bathroom before she could reach full awareness.

The bathroom door clicked shut behind them, locked.

Weiss stared, appalled at the way Blake had yanked her teammate around. Then again, Yang wasn't exactly made of fine china.

Well. At least now she could give her partner her medicine without being potentially slaughtered for _no reason_ by her protective older sister.

Ruby was awake now, somewhat. She stirred and propped herself up on one elbow, "Mmrg. What's going on?"

"Just time to take your pills again," Getting water from the bathroom wasn't really an option at this point, so Weiss collected the bag of dinner rolls and... hesitated. Ruby was scrubbing the drug-induced sleep from her eyes. Her hair was a mess and her pajamas were askew; she barely looked twelve. What had her teammates been thinking?! Weiss steeled herself and uncapped the bottle of pain meds. "Are... you feeling alright?"

"Mmn," the younger girl sat up the rest of the way and looked around. "Is this my house?"

"This is our dorm, at Beacon," Weiss rolled her eyes and seated herself on the mussed up half of the ripped curtain that was serving as a blanket. "Here, do whatever you did last time to take these," she pressed the pills and a roll into Ruby's open hands. "Don't choke. And hurry up." Blake couldn't keep Yang occupied forever, and Weiss did not want her to come out and see her sitting on the same bed as her half-conscious sister.

Ruby swallowed the mouthful of dinner roll and medicine, making a face, "Yuck."

"Oh, get over it," Weiss didn't look up as she prepped her partner's second dose of antitoxin.

Ruby took another bite of bread to get the taste out of her mouth. She watched Weiss's hands blearily. "How many more shots do I need?"

"Six, not counting this one." Rubbing alcohol. Cotton balls. Weiss picked a spot on Ruby's arm but stopped before she touched her, darting a glance up, "Is it alright if I…" disinfect your arm so I can give you a shot that will prevent you from dying? Right. Yes. It was fine. Weiss swiped the spot with alcohol and administered the shot. Ruby took it without complaint.

"Weiss?"

The heiress wiped away a spot of blood from the injection site, keeping a watchful eye on the bathroom door. "Yes?"

"Do you think you could get Crescent Rose for me?" Ruby asked, words heavy with pain meds and fatigue.

Weiss's brow furrowed, "Dare I ask why?"

"Because." When this didn't seem to be enough to convince the icy girl, Ruby added, "I mean what if something happens and I need to protect you guys?" She tipped forward till her head was against Weiss's shoulder. "… I'm sleepy."

"… I know. Just lie down, okay?" Weiss guided the younger girl down to Yang's pillow. That done, she took a deep breath and finished readying the syringe for disposal.

Rain spattered against the window as the wind outside shifted.

Thank goodness they didn't need to do anything that required leaving the building. The heiress procured a roll of gauze and a square bandage from her supplies on the bookcase, "Okay. Let's-"

"Weiss," Ruby interrupted, a note of panic in her voice.

Weiss dropped everything at the side of the bed, "What? What's wrong?"

"My cloak. I think I... I lost it somewhere," she pushed herself up again, eyes brimming with tears.

Weiss watched in growing horror as her partner began to fall apart, "Ruby, no. Stop it. I forbid you to cry."

"I-I'm sorry, I just..." Ruby scrubbed at her eyes, and droplets hit the sheets of Yang's mattress.

Oh _Dust_ no. The fencer licked her lips and took a breath, shifting strategies. "Okay, um. So your cape's lost. We'll find it, alright? We just left it..." where had they left it? Somewhere in the leaves of Forever Fall? A red cloak in a red forest. _Great._ "... I'm sure it's still right there. It's so ratty no one would want to steal it, right? We'll just go get it when you feel better. It'll be fine, so... so..." She didn't know what to do, so she planted one hand on top of Ruby's head and looked her in the eye. "It'll be _fine_. Okay?"

That got Ruby's attention. She blinked, startled out of her despair.

"Yeah… yeah, okay," Her breath hitched. Her nose was running. Weiss removed her hand and fished a handkerchief from her jacket pocket. Ruby took it and wiped her face, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Weiss said. Her ice blue eyes darted to the bathroom door again, "As in really. Don't. To anybody."

* * *

><p>Yang blinked sleep from her eyes, squinting in the light over mirror. "Blake, wait, Weiss is still out there, and Ruby-"<p>

"Take off your shirt."

Yang snapped to attention, blushing from her ears down to her neck. "wh- ..._what_."

Blake held up the roll of gauze with the barest hint of a smile. "It's time to change your bandages."

"Can... can this wait?" Yang spluttered out, trying to regain her composure. She took a step forward. "Weiss is going to-"

"Weiss isn't going to do anything," Blake reassured the agitated brawler. She placed her hands on Yang's shoulders and gently pushed her back towards the toilet seat. "I spoke with her while you were asleep."

Blush finally starting to recede, Yang's eyes darted from Blake, to the door, then back again, before she finally relented and sat down. "You... did?"

"Yes. And I'm pretty sure you have nothing to worry about. It seems like the rumor really is just a rumor."

Yang crossed her arms and huffed. "Oh _sure _it's just a rumor. That's what she_ wants_ us to think."

Blake rolled her eyes. She knew it was useless to argue the point with a partner as stubborn as a mule. She placed a hand on Yang's shoulder. "Regardless, maybe you should put more faith in Ruby. She's a big girl, she can handle herself."

Amethyst eyes glared burning holes into open space. Yang's shoulder slid out of Blake's grip as the brawler leaned back and glowered. After a long pause, she let out a tired sigh.

"Yeah... I know." Her gaze slid down to stare at the floor. "I just don't want to see her get hurt."

Blake knelt down, bringing herself low enough to catch her partner's gaze. Amber locked with amethyst. "And if Ruby really _is _fond of our resident ice queen, whether as friends or something more, how do you think it's going to make her feel to see you attack Weiss?"

Yang wrested her gaze away, glaring daggers to the side. Blake could see the brawler's gears spinning a mile a minute. After what felt like an eternity, Yang suddenly stood, and ripped off her tank top. "_Fine_. I'll... talk to Weiss." She glanced from her discarded tank top to Blake, and grinned. "For now, let's do this. These things are really starting to itch."

Blake stood, bearing a disarming smirk. She could really feel the medication kicking in. "Good. Turn around."

Her smirk vanished as Yang complied, pulling her hair in front of her and turning to show her back, which sported a long red streak that had slowly seeped through her bandages. The faded line ran from her left shoulder to her right hip. Eyes distant, Blake gently trailed her fingers across the injury, hating that she had been the cause of it. "Do you think this will scar?"

Yang looked over her shoulder, "Yeah probably. But it's whatever." She grinned as Blake lifted her head to fix her with a questioning stare. "You're still here, and that's what matters."

A slight blush crept up Blake's ears at the intensity of her partner's smile. She lightly smacked Yang's arm. "Of course. Who else could put up with your constant hug attacks."

"Ow~" Yang rubbed her arm, still smiling. "Hey, it's not _my _fault you're so comfortable."

With the hint of a smile and yet another eye roll - Blake found she did this quite often around her partner - she pushed Yang's face away and started searching for the end of the bandage wrapped around the brawler's torso. After a good bit of searching, she finally located it near her lower back. She gently pulled it free, then paused. "...Thanks."

Yang glanced back at her partner. "Any time." She shifted her gaze to the bathroom door, amethyst eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Now hurry up so I can check on Ruby."

Stifling the urge to roll her eyes yet again, Blake began carefully unraveling Yang's bandages, reaching around her partner in the occasional pseudo-hug as she followed the trail of gauze. Just like unwrapping a giant birthday present... wait, what? Blake shook her head, trying to focus through the growing haze from the pain medication. She blinked once, twice, a third time, feeling her mental faculties slow down. ...Oh what was she worried about. Blake smiled.

Everything would be fine.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Famous last words there, Blake. Famous last words.  
><strong>

**- Fiercesomest**


	4. CATastrophe

**A/N: The stars aligned so that I could name this chapter.**

**Hugs,**  
><strong>Defenestrator<strong>

* * *

><p>Weiss shifted on the mattress a bit, inspected the gauze bandaging on Ruby's leg. Well, her thigh. Upper thigh, to be more exact. The heiress had to roll Ruby's shorts up a couple of inches to find the top of the wrapping. So far it looked alright. Well, there were no fresh bloodstains, anyway.<p>

"Am I going to die?" Ruby's solemn question made Weiss's heart jump. Then she saw the goofy grin plastered on the younger girl's face.

"Don't joke like that, you dunce," Weiss scowled. She lifted her hands to the edge of the gauze and let them fall again. The bandage seemed a lot higher up than before.

Oh, this was not awkward _at all_. Especially given the mortifying conversation she'd just had in the bathroom with Blake. Weiss stole a glance towards the place in question.

"Ruby, I... I hope you know that I really..." she searched for words, "respect you as team leader."

"…you do?" Ruby shifted a little more onto her side, hugging Yang's pillow. "I thought I was an insufferable little red-"

"Okay, no, well, mostly," Weiss massaged her temple. She tried again. "What I'm trying to say is I think we should continue to be team partners... or maybe... friends... but that's it."

Ruby's expression went quizzical, "Uh... Weiss, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Nevermind," she was a flustered idiot talking to a _stupid_ idiot on heavy pain medication. Weiss focused back on removing the too-high bandage.

Ruby settled back into watching her work through a drugged haze. The heiress's hands were quick and precise, unwinding the old gauze. It stuck in places, but she was gentle getting it loose. Now she was saying something Ruby didn't quite catch. "Mm?"

"I said I'm going to get some water to clean this up," she repeated. "Don't go anywhere."

"Mm," Ruby still wondered a little about what Weiss had been trying to tell her before, but all that stuck in her mind was that she'd said 'partners' and 'friends', and, well, all of that sounded good to Ruby. She turned onto her side, snuggling into the blankets and drifting off to sleep.

Ruby's wound was an impressive slash- almost as long as Weiss's forearm. It had been stitched, where it could be stitched, but the edges hadn't been even and there were a handful of less serious scrapes alongside the main one, which almost made it look like Ruby had been chewed on rather than slammed by a rat's tail. The injury itself seemed to have improved a little since she'd first witnessed it being dressed in the infirmary, but it still wasn't healing as quickly as it should have been. Weiss would just have to watch it and keep it clean, which right now translated to taking care of the dried blood crusted around the edges of the wound.

She chose an empty mug off the bookcase.

Team RWBY's bathroom was obviously out of the question as a source of water, so she slipped out into the deserted hallway, shutting the door softly behind her.

Weiss straightened her jacket and brushed her hair into place. Then, steeling herself a little, she knocked on Team JNPR's door.

After a few moments, the door clicked and opened to reveal Pyrrha, already in her night clothes. The taller girl stared down at the heiress, trying and failing completely to veil her surprise. "...Weiss?"

Why was she visiting so late? Green eyes darted to team RWBY's door, fearing the worst. Had something gone wrong? Had Weiss been kicked out? Opening the door a little wider, Pyrrha stepped forward.

"Is everything all right?" she asked, concern evident in her tone.

Weiss stood very straight to make up for the difference in height between herself and the crimson-haired warrior.

"Ruby and I are _not _a couple, nor are we even _remotely _interested in becoming one," she lifted her chin, glaring at the taller girl as if daring her to offer a contradiction. "Also, I need to use your sink."

Pyrrha blinked at the sudden declaration. She frowned under the heiress's icy glare, saddened slightly at her apparent choice to hide. Of course, she'd always known Weiss to be exceedingly practical. It made sense that she wouldn't want to pursue things out in the open with her family name on the line.

This must be her way of asking for things to be kept quiet. Well, she could definitely keep a secret. A soft smile graced Pyrrha's features as she stepped aside to allow Weiss through the doorway. "Of course. Come in."

Weiss strode past Pyrrha into Team JNPR's room. The light was still on but it appeared that the team was getting ready for bed. Nora bounced on the edge of hers, clearly incapable of holding still for more than a few seconds at a time. Lie Ren was under the covers of the next bed over. Only his dark hair and its pink stripe were visible. Jaune was stripping off his gear.

"Hey Pyrr-AAH, whoa, uh, Weiss!" the blonde swordsman fumbled his sweatshirt as he turned, holding it over his bare chest, as if he had anything to cover.

It was at this point that Weiss realized she had made a grievous miscalculation.

She had planned for this to be an in-and-out sort of operation. Go in, mostly ignore Pyrrha and Jaune, get some water, and get out. Lie Ren and his partner weren't supposed to be here; for Dust's sake, he'd gotten _stabbed through the chest_. By all accounts, he should have still been in intensive care.

She barely had time to register the scope of her error and vow to send Lie Ren back to the intensive care unit _herself_ before Nora sprang from the bed.

"Heya Weiss! Have you kissed Ruby any recently? Jaune said you guys were all over each other, but I thought you were probably just wrestling, after all who knocks over chairs when they kiss? Unless you two were really into it, in which case, wow you must really be keeping that warm fuzzy side of you under wraps," Nora threw her arms around the heiress's shoulder in an ecstatic side-hug, "I mean, I didn't even know you liked girls! Isn't that crazy?"

"I-what?- no- get your hands off of me!" Weiss shoved at the other girl, ducking to get out from under the hammer wielder's unwelcome embrace.

"Whoa, guys, hey," Jaune, his shirt on inside-out and backwards, broke in between his teammate and the heiress to separate them before Weiss totally lost it, "Let's… uh… actually maybe let's not-"

"You-!" Weiss buried her fists in his collar, dragging him down to her eye-level, "_What_ did you say about me and Ruby?!"

"Nothing!" Jaune squeaked in terror, hands raised in surrender. "Well, I mean, you were on top of her in the dark and it just came out when I opened my mouth and oh Dust please don't kill me."

A pair of strong arms suddenly wrapped around the heiress from behind, lifting her bodily off of the ground and away from Jaune.

"I'm sorry!" was Pyrrha's only explanation as she physically deposited Weiss back into the hallway and shut the door.

Moments later, the door opened again, and Pyrrha placed a bottle of water in Weiss's empty hand, looking nervous. "Don't worry, I'll explain things to them - I promise."

With one last apologetic smile, the red-head shut the door again to prevent her teammates from getting themselves killed.

When Weiss found herself suddenly ejected into the hallway, she was too blisteringly angry to even speak. The effect abated somewhat after the door shut in her face for the second time and she clenched her fists at her side with an infuriated shriek. The nerve- the absolute _gall_.

Crimson from her neck to the tips of her ears, she marched back to her own room and fumbled with the keys, muttering acid plans to send _all _of Team JNPR to the ER. At last, she stepped back in to the half-lit room. She'd apparently left the cap off the container of rubbing alcohol from when she cleaned up the marker on Ruby's face all those hours ago, so the room had a faintly antiseptic smell on top of that college-dorm-unwashed-sheets smell.

She scowled briefly at the hanging bunk where she'd be spending the night. Why hadn't she thought to put Ruby's sheets in the laundry earlier? Ugh. Well, that would be the first thing on the list tomorrow.

The bathroom door was still shut and Yang and Blake were nowhere to be seen. Weiss growled under her breath. Great. They'd probably both passed out on the floor, or in the shower. She'd have to check to make sure they hadn't drowned after she finished re-bandaging Ruby.

The little red dolt was exactly where she'd left her, conked out on the mattress on the floor. Weiss paused in the middle of the room, taking a couple of deep breathes to calm down.

Fix Ruby up now. Plan funerals later.

She fetched another handkerchief from a drawer at her desk and sat back on the mattress with her partner. "Wake up, Ruby."

"Hmn?" she stirred at the bounce in the springs, but didn't lift her head, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter. Let me do this and you can sleep again," Weiss dampened the handkerchief and touched it to the edge of Ruby's wound. That treacherous flush was creeping back up on her. She darted her eyes to Ruby's for a second. "Tell me if it hurts and I'll stop."

"Mmkay," Ruby mumbled and proceeded to drool on Yang's pillow.

For a while, Weiss tried to hold onto some of her anger, but she really couldn't be upset and gentle at the same time, and dealing with injuries required gentleness, so she set aside the whole incident across the hall and focused on getting rid of the dried blood and gunk that edged her partner's wound.

It was… really unnerving to look at. It had been, what? A day and a half? Injuries like this, well… usually one's aura could have it patched up in an hour. At least Ruby's should have been able to handle this. Poison, though, Weiss reminded herself. There was poison, and doubtless that threw a wrench into the works somehow.

She finished cleaning up the dried blood and pretty soon had a square bandage over the wound and was wrapping it in fresh gauze from the bottom up. "Next time, injure your wrist, or your knee," Weiss grumbled as she rolled the hem of Ruby's shorts up an extra turn to give herself more room, "Someplace at least mostly decent."

* * *

><p>After what felt like ages, Blake finally pulled the last bit of gauze from Yang's back, leaving only the trail of reddened square bandages covering her stitches. The brawler twisted around, curious. "How does it look?"<p>

"Like you've been moving around too much," came Blake's deadpan reply. She prodded her partner back into standing straight before peeling the squares off one by one. The stitches underneath didn't look too bad, but they definitely needed cleaning. "Hold still."

Yang nonchalantly crossed her arms in a failed attempt to somewhat cover herself as Blake moved to grab a clean white washcloth and some kind of plastic bottle from underneath the sink. Fortunately her wild mane of hair covered what her arms could not.

She eyed the label on the bottle in her partner's hands as Blake moved closer - peroxide. Her face fell. "This is gonna sting, isn't it?" She didn't expect the lazy smile that suddenly flitted across her partner's features.

"Probably."

Yang took the peroxide like a champ, wincing more from the sheer cold of the liquid than the sting. Satisfied with her work, Blake capped the bottle of peroxide and put it back underneath the sink, grabbing the stack of sterile pads beside it. She turned to stare and Yang's back and paused.

She really had no idea what she was doing.

Weiss was the one who'd been given all the medical care instructions. Blake furrowed her brows at the fluffy white squares in her hand, amber eyes glassy from the medication. It shouldn't be that difficult, she just had to place these pads on her partner's back without them falling off. So, standing wouldn't work. Laying down maybe? But then how would she wrap the bandages afterwards...

"Uh... Blake?" Yang's voice broke through her musing.

Blake blinked up at her partner. "Huh?"

"Are you OK over there?" The brawler had turned around, arms still crossed, one golden eyebrow arched over a smile.

One amber eye tracked a particularly wild curl of hair swaying back and forth as Yang shifted her weight. "I'm fine... maybe a little tired." She motioned to the floor. "Could you get on all fours for me?" Blake barely suppressed a smirk as all color drained from her partner's face. "I need to put these on your back," she continued, holding up the sterile pads.

"Oh - right! Yeah, sure... ok..." Yang shook her head, smile returning as she turned around and got down on the floor. "Like this?"

"Yes." Blake half-smiled as she knelt to put the squares into place across Yang's stitches, layering them like scales on a dragon. Blinking slowly, she picked up the gauze and started the long process of wrapping up Yang's torso.

She was about halfway up the brawler's back when that wild mane of hair became a problem. Not because it was getting in the way of anything, but because it hung tantalizingly in the air, swaying back and forth... and back... and forth... Blake froze.

"...Hey, why'd you stop?" Yang looked down, realizing the bandages had just about reached her chest. "Aw, don't tell me you're nervous, it's just me." Yang turned to look back at her partner just in time to get a face-full of her own hair. Before she could recover, Blake struck again, swatting at her hair like... like a...

"You're on pain medication again aren't you."

Her only response was a contented purr.

* * *

><p>Weiss sat back on her heels with a small sigh of relief. Ruby was medicated, bandaged, and sleeping like a log. As a final touch, she'd pulled the covers off of Ruby's bunk and laid them out neatly over the younger girl so she wouldn't wake up whining about being cold.<p>

What next? Well... Yang and Blake had yet to make an appearance. Also it was getting late. Weiss crossed to the bathroom door, stifling a yawn. She desperately needed some rest herself. As in, the day really needed to end before anyone else accosted her with assumptions about her relationship with her team leader.

She would sleep after she checked on the other half of the team. Yang's voice came muted through the door, and she didn't seem to be screaming in pain or anything. That was always a good sign. Weiss knocked a couple of times and tried the knob. It was locked.

"Are you two alright in there?" she called, more than a little suspicious about whatever was going on. "Do you need anything? I'm going to bed if you don't."

Muffled bits of speech punctuated with scuffling noises drifted through the door, getting clearer as the source came closer.

"Blake, wait, hey c'mon that tickles, I'm just trying to - _woah_ heyyyyy, all right." The door to the bathroom clicked, then swung open. Yang stood tall - disheveled, half-bandaged, topless, and with Blake practically hanging off of her neck, face buried up to her uncovered cat ears in the brawler's hair.

Amethyst eyes quickly traveled over to Ruby, then slowly returned to focus on Weiss. "So, we still need to talk."

The heiress had already turned, however, and was marching back to her bed.

Done.

She was done.

She shed her boots and tucked them under the edge of the now unoccupied lower bunk, tossed her hair ornament on the bookcase, and got under the covers fully dressed.

The day was officially _over_.

Only after she had pulled the blankets up over her head did she realize that Yang still needed her next dose of antitoxin.

"Oh, someone please just shoot me," she growled under her breath, shutting her eyes and pulling the covers close to block out the world for another couple of seconds.

It took a moment, but once she got over the shock of being completely ignored, Yang tried to follow Weiss, stumbling under the added dead weight of her partner.

"Wait, come back - I wanted to say I'm sorrUGH" she tripped over one of Blake's legs mid-sentence, faceplanting unceremoniously to the floor right by Ruby's feet.

Blake nimbly avoided falling, letting go of the toppling brawler at the last second. She sat by her prone partner and stared down at her, cat ears alert and twitching. Suppressing a groan, Yang turned her head slightly to squint up at the intense amber eye currently locked on her. Slowly, deliberately, Blake stretched out one hand... and placed it on Yang's face.

Weiss hadn't heard a word Yang had said. Now, cursing herself for being too responsible to let her partner's sister succumb to Grimm poison, she threw back the covers, bracing herself to deal with her half-naked teammate... who was sprawled flat on the rug in the middle of the floor.

"Don't move. _Don't_. Move." If there was one thing she most certainly did _not _need to see (again), it was topless Yang. Weiss swung her legs over the side of the bed, undoing the clasps on the case of antitoxin while her mind worked a mile a minute.

_What had been going on in the bathroom?_ Did she really want to know?

Deciding that she didn't, Weiss banished any further consideration of the matter and finished prepping the syringe with amber liquid. Six more rounds of this meant three, maybe four more days of heavy pain medication. Possibly five, but the two sisters could surely work through the pain by then. So five days, tops. She could handle five days. After that, they could all be heavy-pain-killer free for the rest of their recovery time. No problem. Everything would be fine.

She approached her two teammates with a healthy amount of caution, holding the needle behind and away from herself, just in case. "Yang, I'm giving you your dose of antitoxin. Don't get up. I swear, if you get up, I will be _extremely _unhappy."

Yang held still and said nothing, simply staring up at Weiss through Blake's fingers. She glanced briefly at Blake's cat ears as they twisted towards the approaching heiress. That couldn't be good... Blake's fingers left the brawler's face as she stood and stepped towards Weiss in one fluid motion. Blake paused for a brief moment, staring intently, before leaning forward and rubbing her face against the heiress's cheek.

All of Weiss's self-assurance went out the window. She recoiled from the Faunus girl, stumbling over the throw-up trash can and crashing into the bookcase.

One of the tiny shelf supports broke, sending novels and textbooks tumbling to the floor. Weiss sat up with a groan, her free hand clapped to the back of her now-aching head. By some miracle, the syringe was still intact.

Startled by the sudden movement and noise, Blake sprang backwards as well, darting underneath Ruby's desk.

"Woah!" Yang pushed herself up off the ground, skirting around Ruby and scattered books to kneel at Weiss's side. She leaned over the heiress to inspect the back of her head - no blood, that much was good - then sat back on her heels. "Jeeze, you ok?"

A crinkling noise drew Yang's attention back to her partner, who was batting around one of the many crumpled up candy wrappers littering the floor under her little sister's desk. It was... dangerously cute. "Um... how much pain medication did you _give_ her anyway?"

Two pills. Dust, should it have been one? Had they even been from the right bottle? Weiss was bent double, the syringe abandoned at the base of the bookcase, her face hidden in her hands, "Stop speaking to me and cover yourself, you imbecile."

Yang was half-naked and practically _on top of her_. Weiss hadn't let her hair down from its off-center ponytail when she'd gotten into bed earlier, which had been a mistake as it could have offered her at least a small amount of shielding. Even the back of her neck was red.

"Oh. Right." Yang backed off, but not before taking the roll of gauze from the now slightly less organized pile of medical supplies on top of the bookcase. "Uh, give me a minute..." Some of the sterile pads had fallen off of her upper back, but whatever, it was probably fine. Fumbling a bit with her hair, she set to finishing up her bandages.

Moving around so much ached a bit, but it was all right. Though, annoyingly persistent curls of her hair kept getting tangled in the bandages, which was a pain. Yang glanced at Weiss, momentarily considering asking her to help hold her hair back, but instead she just grinned at the heiress, who was still burning red.

Really, how had Weiss been expecting to change these bandages if she was going to get this embarrassed over a little bit of skin? It might be best to leave the task of redressing this thing to Blake again when the time came for it later. As if on cue, a clattering of pencils drew Yang's eyes to the Faunus in question, now perched atop Ruby's desk where the cup of writing utensils used to be, silently surveying her surroundings. _Or,_ maybe she would ask Ruby for help.

The pajama-clad scythe-wielder curled up a little tighter on her side under her blankets, mumbling something incoherent into Yang's pillow. Probably a complaint against the noise.

Weiss, meanwhile, was moderately certain that she'd given Blake the right medication. Even having just suffered a blow to the head, she couldn't fathom making a mistake to that degree. There was just no way.

But there was also no denying the distinctly feline manner Blake had adopted. Her ears were perked. Her eyes were bright. She was knocking things off Ruby's desk. If they hadn't already known that Blake possessed certain catlike characteristics as part of her Faunus heritage, they would certainly have found out today!

Weiss held her hands up to her temples like blinders to block out Yang and halfway forgot about how horrible the current situation was as she watched Blake. Why on earth was she acting that way? Lowered inhibitions? Some kind of instinct that remained functional when the rest of her mind was impaired by pain killers?

Whatever the case, this would be a most opportune time to procure a little blackmail material on her unfortunate teammate.

If Weiss were the blackmailing type, anyway. Which of course she wasn't.

At least she would never _use _it.

...

Oh, who was she kidding? Weiss plucked her scroll out of her jacket pocket, activating its video recording feature, then held it up in her free hand so Blake was in the shot.

Lights, camera, _action_.

Though she had been concentrating on one of Ruby's endless pieces of candy - one with an _especially_ crinkly wrapper - the tiny beep signaling Weiss's scroll beginning to record caught Blake's attention. In less than a second her ears swiveled forward, her amber eye honed in on the red recording light, and she tensed into a crouch.

Yang looked up as well, glancing from Weiss to Blake, and back again. Weiss was recording Blake's antics, awesome! Blake was carefully tracking the red dot of light on Weiss's scroll. That... might be less awesome. "Uh... Weiss-"

The heiress had maybe a fraction of a second between realizing exactly why Blake was crouching down so low and the actual pounce. Her eyes flickered up from the screen, wide with panic.

It was too late. In two swift bounds, Blake leaped from the desk and pounced on the red light, and by proxy, Weiss.

The impact slammed then back into the bookcase again, sending more books slewing across the floor as Weiss struggled under the full weight of the cat Faunus. "_Blake,_" she tried to wrestle the scroll away and get out from under her at the same time, "Get. _Off!_"

Yang moved towards them to intercept, but just as quickly as she had attacked, Blake wrenched the shiny red light from Weiss's hands and retreated, jumping up into Ruby's bunk in a single swift movement. Eye patch knocked askew from the scuffle, she gripped Weiss's scroll firmly between her teeth and crouched once more, eyes and ears focused on the heiress.

Yang stared up at her partner, face slowly breaking into a grin. "I _really _wish I had a laser pointer right now."

Weiss hauled herself up on the bookcase and stood in the middle of the spill of books and medical supplies, her uniform a disheveled mess. She scowled up at her teammate in the bunk bed- did she have her scroll in her _mouth?!_ "Okay. Not funny. Give it back."

Yang nudged a textbook out of the way with her foot to stand next to Weiss. She gave her bandages a quick cursory check - messy, irregular, but they covered everything... More or less. Eh, it was good enough. She glanced at Weiss. "Do you think Blake can understand us right now?"

Just as the words left the brawler's mouth, Weiss's scroll clattered to the floor. Blake's gaze had shifted again, now locked on the long swishing ponytail trailing down the heiress's side.

"Does that answer your question?" Weiss rolled her eyes when Blake dropped her scroll. It was entirely possible that this whole act-like-a-cat thing was, in fact, an act. Granted Blake didn't seem like the type to pull this sort of stunt. Oh well.

She knelt to retrieve the sturdy device, not even paying attention to the way her hair followed her arm, draping along her sleeve, "Anyway, _thanks _for just _dropping it on the floor_, Blake. If it's broken, I'm blaming you, pain killers or no."

The attack was swift. It was silent. Not even Yang could react in time as Blake sprang from Ruby's bed, descending upon Weiss like a Nevermore swooping down on its prey, flattening her target to the floor. She stretched languidly atop the heiress's back before lying on top of her and burying her face in those alluring white tresses.

To Weiss, it felt more like having a full-grown Ursa Major land on her back, with the small exception that she was still alive several seconds afterwards. Alive, with the breath knocked clean out of her and a very heavy, very medicated Blake lying on top of her and doing something to her hair.

Weiss gasped in an attempt to get more air into her lungs and tried to push herself up on her elbows, but she was quite pinned under the far-too-affectionate- ferocious?- Faunus. She tried to give getting her wind back priority over whatever her teammate was doing to her but the latter was _truly a large concern_. Was that Blake's face against the back of her neck? Was that Blake's _tongue_?! Weiss managed a small, choked sound.

At the same time as all of this, Ruby was whining somewhere behind her, "Why are you guys so loud...? Did somebody fall out of bed?"

Yang glanced at her sister and smiled. "You could say that." Seeing that Weiss was in no position to escape on her own, the brawler bent down, cautiously reached around Blake's middle, and hefted the squirming Faunus up off of Weiss and into a standing position.

"Hey now Blake, you can't just go around pouncing on teammates like that." Blake fought her partner's grip for a short while, but ultimately gave up and slumped forward to hang limp in Yang's arms, ears lowered and looking dejected.

"Y-_you_-" Weiss coughed, still unable to draw a full breath. She gripped the edge of the bed and used it to get to her hands and knees, snarling, "I'm... going to lock you... into a person-sized _cat carrier_," a deeper breath this time, "for the rest of _your life_."

Yang pulled Blake closer to herself and took a step back, looking horrified. "Oh my _god _Weiss, you can't just _say _things like that to a Faunus!"

Blake's ears flattened in fear and she began to squirm again, trying to get as far away as possible from the heiress that was currently radiating pure fury in her direction.

"No? Then how about this," Weiss hauled herself upright, squaring her shoulders and pointing at the cowering Blake, "Get into bed _right now _and stay there before I freeze you to your mattress _for the duration of the school year_," she shifted her icy glare to Yang, "And that goes for you too. I don't care if you're half naked anymore. That's fine! But I am going to give you this shot of antitoxin if it kills me. Or _you_. Whichever. I am seriously beyond caring at this point."

"Ok, _OK_." Yang held up a hand in a gesture of peace, keeping a hold on her partner with the other. By the end of Weiss's tirade, Blake had turned completely around to bury her face into Yang's shoulder, opting to hide as escape apparently wasn't an option. The brawler squinted, both in incredulity at Weiss, and in pain. Blake was gripping her shoulder _very _tightly, and it hurt a little.

Well, everything hurt, actually. She had just been ignoring it for the better part of an hour now. Yang knew she needed her next shot, but Weiss looked as though she was about ready to stab her in the eye with it if she wasn't careful, and the pain medication probably wouldn't help much with that. Anyway, the ice queen was certainly living up to her title.

Yang inched backwards towards Blake's bed and sat down, pulling her shaking partner up into her lap as best she could. She'd never seen Blake this afraid of anything. Granted, she'd never seen Weiss this angry. She marveled at how the heiress could be so cool in battle, but could be set off so easily almost anywhere else. Really, _what _did Ruby see in this girl? She glanced at her little sister, staring up at Weiss with those bright silver eyes.

A thought struck her then. What if Ruby _liked _it when Weiss got angry? What if... she thought it was _cute_?! Even she had to admit, the heiress was beautiful. Was her little sister a fan of the pretty, angry-but-easily-flustered types? Thinking about it that way, things started to make sense.

Weiss did get angry pretty often... and it was usually at Ruby... and Ruby would usually smile and... oh _man_. Her little sister had it bad. She would definitely have to talk to her tomorrow... Blake tensed in her arms as Weiss's icy gaze bored into them both. ...That is, if she survived the night.

The heiress had her hand on the back of her hair. Was that drool? Oh, Blake was going to pay for this. Weiss shut her eyes for a second trying to sort out the dozen threats- threats as in _promises_- all leaping to the front of her mind.

Fortunately for the cat Faunus, Ruby made a timid interruption, "Hey, um, Weiss?"

Abandoning the threats, Weiss snapped, "_What?_"

The younger girl cringed and averted her eyes, "Could I maybe have some water? I mean, if right now's not good that's okay, just I feel kind of hot and..." she trailed off, rubbing her forehead with the back of her wrist.

Weiss stood, completely derailed, as her partner rambled. She was still under the influence of the pain medication, as was the rest of her team. Right. Weiss scowled. She was dealing with semi-invalids.

"... fine." she answered Ruby. She picked her way through the mess of books to get the mug left on the top of the bookcase. Her gaze cut back to the pair on the bed, "Don't. Move." and she stalked to the bathroom.

Ruby waited till the tap was running to turn to Yang. She gave her a brief, sleepy thumbs-up and held a finger to her lips for silence.

When Weiss returned, she was notably calmer. "Here," she gave Ruby the mug of water. Then she located the syringe and the bottle of rubbing alcohol and turned to Yang, eyes hard with some vestiges of her previous anger, "Are you going to grab me or try to climb on my back or something? Because if so, I just want you to know that I will happily facilitate your being unconscious for this."

Yang took Ruby's advice and stayed silent, avoiding Weiss's gaze and simply shaking her head. Amazing. Her little sister was amazing. One small request and just like that, the heiress seemed at least 50% less likely to murder them on sight. Ruby's ability to defuse Weiss was unparalleled. She loosened her hold on Blake, absentmindedly straightening out her partner's skewed eye patch.

Thunder struck at that precise moment, spooking the already stressed Faunus. Blake bolted - her lack of depth perception finally catching up with her as her shoulder caught one of the stacks of books holding up Yang's bed, knocking them free. The bed frame teetered for a split second, then slid sideways and collapsed, right on top of its stunned owner.

"Yang!" Ruby dropped her mug and tried to get up and help get the solid wooden bed frame off her sister while Wiess stood staring. While she may have threatened to knock Yang out, she hadn't meant for Yang to _actually _receive a blow to the head. Thunder rolled again and she snapped out of it, setting the syringe by the mattress on the floor and helping Ruby lift.

"Okay, get out from under it," she growled to the brawler as she shifted her grip to get her shoulder under the edge of the hefty frame. It wasn't all that heavy without the actual mattress, unless you were, say, getting clocked with it. It was big, though, and unevenly weighted.

A low stream of curses emanated from the brawler as she slid out from underneath the frame and flopped to the floor. She refused to move. Everything was pain. And yet, in her final moments of consciousness she managed one last strangled whisper, "wow Blake... you really got the _bed_der of me..."

Ruby sat down hard next to her sister after that effort, her head swimming. "Okay. Ow. For both my head and that pun."

Weiss let the bed frame fall back into place on top of Blake's bunk. "I told you this arrangement was incredibly dangerous," she watched the fallen bed a moment, as if she expected it might rear up and strike again.

If Yang had been able to make jokes, she couldn't be too bad off. Then again, she was unconscious now. And her shoulder was bleeding. Great- she'd ripped some of her stitches, most likely. "Ruby, are you alright?"

"Me? Yeah, of course," she tugged at her sister, trying to straighten her out on the mattress a little, but... "... there's blood. Is she okay?"

"Just hang on," Weiss climbed over to the bookcase for the last of the bandages. She'd thought it was ridiculous, the amount of materials the infirmary had given her. Ha! Well. That would teach her to not expect her teammates to re-injure themselves at least two or three times daily.

Kneeling back over Yang on the mattress, she scowled at the tangle of bandages and cotton pads. Well, she'd just have to do something temporary till the brawler could sit upright for her.

A little gauze and medical tape later, Yang was no longer bleeding freely on the ripped curtain (which was thankfully already red. Had Beacon's color scheme been chosen with this sort of scenario in mind?) Weiss also took the opportunity to administer her second dose of antitoxin, though Yang couldn't very well take painkillers. She was not going to be in good shape when she woke up, but for now Weiss had done what she could. Yang was stable, resting easy. Ruby had drifted back into a drug-induced slumber. Weiss breathed a sigh of relief, and then remembered Blake.

_Blake_. Who was currently out of her mind on pain meds and just might soon be suffering an early demise. She whipped her head to the side, searching for the Faunus girl.

The room was silent save for the ceaseless thunder and rain. Blake was notably absent. A small creaking noise came from the darkened bathroom.

Weiss got up, eyeing the darkness of in the bathroom with an air of suspicion. She crossed the room slowly, quiet in her stocking feet, and shut the door.

Maybe, what with the medication and all, Blake had forgotten how to use doorknobs.

The heiress could only hope.

She shed her jacket, cut her desk light off, and collapsed into her bunk, completely spent.

Hours later, in the dead of night, the storm finally subsided.

One lone amber eye peeked out from underneath Weiss's bed. Blake crept out into the open. Slowly, quietly, she surveyed her surroundings, ears high on full alert. Brightness caught her eye, and she turned back to face Weiss's bed. Moonlight peeking through from the freshly parted clouds poured down onto the heiress's snow white hair, which was draped over her shoulder again.

Enamored, Blake crept up onto Weiss's bed, careful not to wake her. She gently pushed herself under the heiress's arm, letting those alluring white locks of hair fall all around her face. Releasing a quiet, contented purr, she curled right up to Weiss and joined her teammates in some much-needed sleep.


	5. Merits

Warmth.

Warmth, and a pleasant smell, like lavender.

Weiss breathed deep, her fingers closing on something silky. Her face was buried in it, her arms around it. A pillow, maybe? She was too muzzy with sleep to care. Whatever this was, it was warm. She hummed contentedly.

Something flicked against her forehead and she blinked her eyes open. It was morning. Faint peach-colored light spilled in through the ripped curtain, illuminating the wreckage of team RWBY's dorm. Books lay scattered across the collapsed bunk on the other side of the room.

Weiss shifted under her blankets. Her arm was caught under the weight of this pleasant, warm thing. Bemused, she drew back a couple of inches and looked down to see what it was.

A velvety black cat ear flicked her nose.

"-!" Weiss flung herself backwards, tumbling over the side of the bed to the floor. Half the blankets got dragged with her and she lay sprawled in a tangle of bed covers on the cold tile, momentarily stunned.

Had that been Blake? Blake Belladonna, in her _bed? _As the throbbing in her head pushed its way past her dazed surprise, she groaned and pushed herself up on her elbows. Oh, today was going to be just _wonderful_.

Roused slightly by Weiss's swift departure, Blake curled in on herself, subconsciously lamenting the sudden loss of warmth. She didn't bother opening her eyes - she was comfortable, and for some reason, incredibly tired. Odd, since she didn't really remember dozing off... Opting to think about it later, she drifted back to sleep.

Weiss dragged herself up and looked at the time. The cafeteria wasn't quite open yet. Blake was curled up in her _bed_. Ruby and Yang were dog-piled together on the mattress on the floor.

At least the sisters' bandages seemed intact, for the most part. Their breathing was steady and even in slumber. That meant that neither of them had come awake in the middle of night with crippling, anti-toxin-induced pain, though they would need to take their medication again probably as soon as they woke up.

Weiss considered taking an aspirin, but instead opted for a shower, and maybe some tea. Weiss chose another set of clothes and began the laborious process of letting her hair down as she crossed to the bathroom. The door clicked shut and locked behind her.

Her bobby pins made faint metallic sounds as she dropped them on the edge of the sink. Weiss searched her reflection, noting her scar; her eyes, blue as ice. There was a dark hair stuck to the front of her uniform's undershirt. She picked it off, too busy calculating to be disgusted.

Yesterday had decidedly been a disaster- a humiliating failure, considering that she really had been trying to keep things under some semblance of control. But today was another day. She cut on the hot water. It was time for a new strategy.

Roughly an hour later, Weiss exited the bathroom, her mood significantly improved. Her hair- now washed and dried- was pulled back in its high, off-center ponytail. Her spare school uniform skirt brushed her knees as she collected her jacket from the back of her desk chair, straightening the collar so the crease was in the right place.

She pulled a lint brush from one of her drawers and used it to remove the dust the dark fabric had collected from her encounters with the floor the previous night before she donned it and did up the bottom few buttons.

Sufficiently prepared for the morning, Weiss collected up the mugs in the room, rinsed them, filled them with water, and set them none-too-gently on top of the half-ruined bookcase.

"Alright, wake up," she ordered her teammates, measuring out pain pills and being very careful to get the correct dosage to the correct person, just in case she had made a mistake with Blake's the night before.

Ruby sat up, her hair a wild nest and her sleeping shirt twisted halfway backwards. Weiss pushed the mug and pain medication into her hands and moved on to the others. "You can sleep again once you take these."

Blake lifted her head at the sound of Weiss's voice and blinked slowly, disoriented for a moment. Once she got her bearings, she froze. Was she... on Weiss's bed? The heiress in question was walking towards her, water and pills in hand, but not looking particularly murderous despite the apparent theft of her bunk.

Ruby also seemed to be awake, barely, but Yang was... not looking particularly well. The brawler was frowning in her sleep, fingers twitching occasionally. Had she taken any of her medication last night? Blake's features settled into a matching frown as she watched her partner grow tense.

Yang sat up and stretched with a groan, blinking sleep from her eyes. Judging by the aches and pains present in every single muscle, she had slept terribly. Why was Weiss waking them up so early anyway? She glanced down at Ruby, still peacefully curled up beside her, and raised an eyebrow. She thought she'd heard her little sister get up already. Well, at least one of them was getting some rest.

Coarse scratching noises made her glance around. Weiss sat at her desk, taking notes from an unusually large book. Wait - hadn't Weiss been right behind her? Yang opened her mouth to say something, but a light rustling of pages turning drew her attention to the other side of the room, where Blake sat on her bunk with her back turned, nose buried in a book of her own.

Amethyst eyes narrowed. Was Blake back to normal? When had they fixed the beds? Yang stared for a minute before eventually shrugging and reaching down to shake her little sister's shoulder.

"Hey, Ruby, you heard Weiss, c'mon it's time to get up."

Ruby didn't move.

A spark of panic. Yang tried again, shaking her with a little more force. "Ruby, wake up. You're gonna sleep right through breakfast."

Ruby remained still.

"It's no use," Weiss's ice-cold words cut through the room, sending chills down Yang's spine.

"You can't wake the dead." Blake's lifeless monotone was, somehow, worse.

Dread engulfed the blonde brawler, increasing tenfold as her two teammates finally turned to face her. Gaping holes sat where shining amber and blue should have been.

Before she had time to fully process the sight, a high pitched keening filled the air as black rats suddenly poured forth in an endless stream from her teammates' empty eye sockets.

The swarm covered Ruby in an instant, rising up in a dark squirming mass and shifting to descend upon Yang. The light filling the room darkened to red, reflected in the towering eye of the Rat King looming right outside the window.

"_NO_."

Yang snapped awake, on her feet in an instant, semblance exploding in a wave of heat. Wild eyes flashing crimson, she blindly lashed out, barely missing Weiss as her fist sailed directly into her toppled bed. The wooden frame shattered where her knuckles landed, splintering into fragments that flew every which way.

Searing pain from the antitoxin shot through her then, dropping the brawler to the ground in a heaving, writhing heap of confusion and flames.

Weiss lunged in, grabbing Ruby's arm and yanking her away from her burning sister. Her hand shot to her jacket pocket to call for emergency medical assistance- but where was her scroll?!

Meanwhile, Ruby cried out, "Yang!" and doused the brawler with the remaining water in her coffee mug.

Yang twisted around on the floor upon hearing Ruby's voice, only to get a face-full of water. She froze and blinked, eyes reverting to amethyst in an instant. The last few flames of Yang's semblance died down as she slowly reached a hand towards Ruby.

Moving hurt - everything hurt. Her fingertips dropped inches from Ruby's foot, but she did her best to smile for her sister, who clearly looked worried. "...hey sis."

Ruby plunked back down on the mattress, taking Yang's hand, "You okay, big sis? It's a good thing you didn't do that to the floor. Or to Weiss," she gave a nervous chuckle and bit her lip, "so... uh... should I move back to my own bed, I guess?"

Blake sat rooted to her spot on Weiss's bunk, wide-eyed and momentarily terrified that she had ever shared sleeping space with a potential incendiary explosive.

Weiss stomped out the smoldering edge of one of the sheets, mentally berating herself for not thinking of using the mug in her own hand to extinguish Yang. Her scroll was probably still on the floor somewhere after last night, among the scattered and thankfully-unsinged books.

She looked at the charred remains of the brawler's splintered bed frame, and then turned to Yang. "Okay. You're going back to the infirmary."

"No! Hey, no, I'm fine," Yang squeezed Ruby's hand as she strained her eyes to look imploringly up at Weiss without moving her head. "You don't need to send me back to the infirmary." Seeing Weiss's impassive gaze, she pulled Ruby a little closer and continued in a slightly more desperate tone, "For the love of dust please don't send me back there it was so _boring_, all I did was sleep."

Blake rolled her eyes. "Heaven forbid."

Yang continued undeterred, "I might actually die..." she added with dramatic flair, "of loneliness."

"If you do _that _again," Weiss gestured to what used to be Yang's bunk, "we might actually die _period._ Given the two options, please excuse me if I take my chances with the former."

"Guys, I'm hungry," Ruby announced, hopping up. She pumped her fist in the air, "We should go to breakfast!"

"_No!_" Weiss grabbed her partner's arm. Both girls lost their balance and collapsed in a heap on the mattress. Weiss pushed herself up, "Look. If you can not destroy anything for fifteen minutes, I'll go. Blake, here's your medication. Yang, let me get yours," her fingertips barely reached the bottle on the bookshelf. She shook it, inspecting the number of pills, and frowned. "... did you not take any of these last night?"

Yang blinked slowly. "...Nope. I never got the chance, seeing as how _someone _dropped a bed on me," she winked at Blake, smiling.

Blake froze in the middle of taking her pills. "...What?"

Weiss ran her hand over her face. Ugh. That was right. How could she have forgotten? She really should have expected something like this. "You're all taking these on time from now on, provided I'm still alive to give them to you." To Blake she said, "Oh, so you don't recall? Have you forgotten about jumping on me from Ruby's bunk too?"

"What?" Ruby started up. "I don't remember that."

Weiss rolled her eyes and pushed Ruby's forehead so she fell back on the mattress.

Blake paled, frowning at the medicine in her hand. She was suddenly _very _unhappy about how foggy her memory of the previous night was.

Unable to see her partner's flattened ears from her position on the floor, Yang laughed, only to slip into a coughing fit from the pain it induced.

Weiss debated for a moment revealing that she'd probably caught most of the fiasco on video, but she didn't really want to relive that particular event, so she decided against it. Maybe she could edit out the embarrassing parts after she actually managed to locate her scroll in the mess.

She also didn't particularly want to have to explain to Beacon's medical staff that Yang had blown up a bed frame because she, Weiss Schnee, had neglected to make sure she took her painkillers on time. Not that it had been completely her fault, but well, still. Furniture at the school did get destroyed now and again- she would just pay the fee when the bill came around.

For now, she crossed her arms, "Yang, pills. Blake, I would be completely fine if you wanted to go with half a dose. Whatever you need to manage your headache. I'm going to get breakfast."

Yang took her pills from Weiss with a muttered, "Thanks," before somehow managing to get the medicine down between coughs.

Blake however stared down at her pills with renewed suspicion. She should have been more careful. General medication was almost never made with the Faunus in mind, so side effects from full dosages could sometimes be... unpredictable. "Just one... should be fine."

Coughs finally subsiding, Yang raised a hand. "Hey can we make requests? Because if we can, bring back pancakes!"

"Oh, yes, of course. And while we're making requests, I have one," the heiress scowled, pausing as she unpacked the papers she had bundled neatly into Ruby's book bag the day before, "Don't. Break. Anything. Fifteen minutes. If I come back and anything is destroyed or on fire, you are going straight to the infirmary," Weiss took the bag and strode to the door.

If she hadn't been positively starving herself- had she even remembered to eat dinner the night before?- she might have doled out more instructions. As it was, she paused, her hand on the door, "I am seriously going against my better judgment leaving you here again," and then shut it behind her.

Blake scowled at the door, then back down at the pain medication in her hand, still trying to piece together what exactly had happened the night before. She remembered talking to Weiss, pulling Yang into the bathroom and talking to her as well... but then things became blurry and disjointed.

The facts available to her didn't paint a particularly coherent picture either. Dropping a bed on her partner? Leaping at Weiss from Ruby's bunk? Waking up in Weiss's bed... with her Faunus ears _uncovered_. She instinctively raised her hands to cover them, earning a glance from Yang. A blush crept up Blake's face at the vague memory of someone with white hair holding her while she slept.

What. _Happened_.

She stood suddenly, leaving the two tiny pain killers on the bed. "I'm going to shower." Without another word, she marched herself to the bathroom.

"But what about your -" the door to the bathroom slammed shut. "- medicine..." Yang raised an eyebrow. Blake was acting weird. Maybe she didn't remember anything? Yang frowned. That meant Blake probably didn't remember the awesome pun she made either. She would have to tell her later. For now though...

Yang shifted slightly to better face her sister. She had Ruby all to herself. It was time to get some answers... and hopefully impart some sisterly wisdom.

"Hey Ruby, c'mere. I want to ask you something."

Ruby's head felt like it was full of cotton candy, but she recognized Yang's voice. Without opening her eyes or moving, she made a groggy sound that rose in pitch at the end, like a question.

Yang rested her head on top of her hands and grinned. "So, what do you like about Weiss?"

* * *

><p>Morning hours saw Beacon's cafeteria in full swing. Sitting quietly beside Jaune with her face in her hands, Pyrrha let the noisy rush of students clamoring to get their preferred pick of the breakfast offerings wash over her as nothing more than white noise.<p>

For once, she was glad at how quiet their table was. She was exhausted – too tired even to eat. Her plate of food remained mostly untouched. It had taken the better part of the night to properly explain what she understood of Weiss's situation to her teammates.

It was, essentially, a pact of secrecy - never mention the heiress's relationship with Ruby, even when asked. Put simply, they would play dumb, because you never knew who might be listening. But of course, Pyrrha still wanted to be encouraging if either one of them needed to talk. It was a fine line, but she made sure to take the time to clarify it to the rest of her team.

Jaune took to the idea of playing dumb pretty quickly, while Ren had remained silent for the duration of her explanation. Mainly, it had been explaining things to Nora that had taken forever. The girl seemed to have no concept of discretion, no matter how she tried to break things down.

After trying and failing more times than she could count, she left it to Ren to explain to his partner. Which, somehow, he did within minutes. Honestly, she probably should have let him deal with Nora from the start.

Stifling a yawn, the redheaded warrior lifted her head to scan the crowds for the heiress's familiar shock of white. Part of her dreaded encountering Weiss again after having seen her and Ruby... on the floor and...

Pyrrha's face flushed. Now was not the time to think about that. Weiss had clearly made a difficult decision that night, judging by how angry she'd been during her visit, and Pyrrha wanted to help support her, not only as a classmate, but also as a friend.

Green eyes finally caught sight of their target - Weiss was going through the line. She tilted her head towards Jaune and nudged him with her shoulder. "Weiss is here. If she comes over here, remember what we talked about yesterday," she leaned in to whisper in his ear, "we didn't see _anything._"

Jaune cupped his hand around his mouth and whispered back, "Right. We saw nothing. Got it."

Weiss, meanwhile, decided against the use of Ruby's bag. The cafeteria servers had seen fit to load her up with an enormous pile of pancakes that were already drenched in syrup, which would be decidedly messy to shove into a cloth bag.

She raised her brow at the heaping tray. They'd given her enough pancakes for ten people. The trays weren't supposed to leave the cafeteria, but that rule was about to be broken.

She hadn't planned on stopping, but she desperately needed some kind of food that wasn't soaked in liquid sugar and she couldn't very well pick anything up while she was balancing a massive batch of pancakes. Weiss made her way through the crowd and placed her tray at the edge of the usual table as far as possible from Jaune and Pyrrha.

Her color rose at the sight of the pair, but deeming them unworthy of her time at this particular juncture, Weiss schooled her expression into passivity and ignored their existence. She turned on her heel, crossing the busy space between tables to collect a few pieces of fruit from the bowls set out nearer the wall.

Jaune, who had forced a nervous smile and waved, let his hand drop and leaned in the Pyrrha again, "Do you think she's still mad? She seems mad. Also, that is a ton of pancakes."

Pyrrha's face fell. She had expected Weiss to be nervous, but not to the extent of completely avoiding them. "She... probably just needs some time." Green eyes blinked. "That _is _a lot of pancakes."

Weiss came marching back, Ruby's bag over her shoulder. She'd packed it with a couple of pieces of fruit, extra plates, a few sets of silverware, and enough napkins to wallpaper her team's dorm because goodness knows they would need them. If the dorm was still intact, of course.

She picked up the tray, cutting her eyes at Jaune and Pyrrha for an instant and lifting her chin in disdain, which was mostly reserved for the blond disaster though she was still not pleased with the way Pyrrha had manhandled her the previous night. She turned without a word and strode towards the cafeteria exit.

Jaune exchanged a helpless, clueless glance with Pyrrha.

* * *

><p>Ruby considered Yang's question for a few, fuzzy moments. Yang wanted to know good things about Weiss? She rubbed her eyes with her fist, "Well... I mean, she's good at everything. Except making friends, but she probably just needs practice, you know? And her sword is so cool. She hasn't let me play with it or anything but I would be super careful if she did and she's really nice underneath all that rich, angry whatever it is so I bet she'll let me sometime, just..." here she yawned, "she just wants to... I dunno... be perfect, or something."<p>

Ruby wasn't sure if that was exactly what her sister was looking for so she tipped her head back to look up at her blearily, "So what do _you _like about Weiss?"

Yang blinked, caught off guard. "I, uh..." Amethyst stared into silver. Was Ruby looking for some kind of approval? Confirmation that her big sister was cool with her dating choices? She thought for a moment.

"Well, let's see. She's a looker, that's for sure. And those glyph things are pretty cool, um, and she's..." Yang searched for more positive descriptors, "...organized?" She winked at Ruby. "She also seems to make you pretty happy, so that's a plus."

"You know what else does?" Ruby gathered up some of her blanket, hugging it like it was a stuffed animal. "Strawberries. Can you bake strawberries into cookies?" her words turned into a sleepy mumble, "That would be the best."

Yang smiled lazily at her little sister, starting to feel herself slip into the medication-induced haze that Ruby was probably already fully suffering. Though, if Ruby was comparing Weiss to strawberry cookies, then that was it - she was set on this girl.

After a few minutes during which she may or may not have drifted to sleep, Ruby roused herself again, "Hey, so what about Blake? And we should clean up these..." her mind didn't quite get around to the word 'books', so she just picked one up to show her sister instead.

Yang blinked again at Ruby's question, glancing at the bathroom door. What about Blake? The question struck her as intriguing, so she humored her little sister. "Blake... is great..." Her face broke into a wide grin. "Ah, who am I kidding she's awesome. So cool and serious, but secretly a huge book nerd, you know? Oh man and her fighting moves are crazy, all ninja style, with those insane clone things. Ohhh, and her eyes are the same color as my hair. And those cat ears are_ so cute,_ and -" The bathroom door swung open, revealing a very unhappy Blake. "- and, we should definitely clean up a bit."

"'Sup Blake?" Ruby held up the hand with the book in it, using her free hand on the mattress to keep from toppling over backwards. "Want to clean?"

Blake stood in the doorway, scowling at nothing in particular. She was fully dressed in her uniform for the day with both her bow and eye patch back in their proper places. Her gaze shifted from Ruby to linger on Yang. With a short sigh, her expression returned to neutral. "...Sure."

She headed over to the pair of sisters and kneeled between them, taking the book from Ruby's hands and placing it back on the shelf. Yang made to hand her a book as well, but she raised an eyebrow when Blake ignored the offered literature and reached for a book lying a little farther away. The Faunus discreetly leaned in towards her partner until her lips barely brushed the brawler's ear. "I need to speak with you later."

Yang's eyes widened at the whispered request as Blake pulled away and fixed her with a piercing amber gaze. This was either a very good sign, or a very bad sign. She simply nodded. Seemingly satisfied, Blake turned away to set her book back in its proper place... but the broken shelf was in the way. "We should probably fix the bookcase before trying to put books in it."

"Okay, guys, you do that and I'll get the books from under the bed," Ruby rolled over to the side of the mattress. She was the smallest, after all, and knew her duties well. Something nagged at the back of her mind like she shouldn't really be doing this for some reason. Maybe because of her leg? But it wasn't like she had to walk or anything, so it would be fine.

She pulled herself halfway under the bed and lay still for a second. Her vision kind of swam for a second. Probably not a good sign, but she rubbed her eyes and it went away.

"Out you go," Ruby swept a couple of the books out into the open floor before spotting a book with a blinking red light. Huh. She fumbled to pick it up. It wasn't a book at all; it was a scroll. The electronic device slid open in her hands and a notification flashed up on its cracked screen.

_'Maximum video capacity reached.' _

The words ran together and Ruby knew what they _meant _but she wasn't sure what to do about them. She bumped her head on the underside of Weiss's bunk as she tried to crawl back out to show the others. "Hey, I think it's... broken?"

Yang turned her head slightly, not really looking up from her self-assigned task of emptying out the broken shelf. "How do you break a book?"

Blake reached over to help pull Ruby out from under the bed, and bent down to examine the item clutched in the smaller girl's hands. "It's a scroll... maximum video capacity?..."

A pile of books dropped from Yang's arms. _Weiss's scroll_. She whirled around, thankful that her pain medication had finally kicked in. "Blake, wait -"

She was too late. Blake had already reached over and pressed Play.

* * *

><p>Weiss sighed in relief, balancing the tray of pancakes using her arm and the doorknob to her dorm room. She fished the key from her jacket pocket, unlocked the door, and shouldered her way into the room.<p>

"... lock you into a person-sized _cat carrier _for the rest of your _life_."

Hearing her own voice, Weiss stopped dead. Ruby, Yang, and Blake were gathered on the floor around her scroll.

_Her scroll_, which contained a very unflattering recording of her in the middle of the previous night's insanity.

"What are you doing?!" She all but flung the tray onto Blake's desk and dove for the treacherous recording device.

"What-? Hey!" Ruby yelped as her partner wrestled the scroll away from her.

Weiss managed to hit the stop icon somewhere along the way, but not before most of the rest of her temper tantrum had played for her teammates.

Yang glanced at her partner, who sat ramrod straight, face passive.

Time seemed to stand still.

Slowly, the Faunus rose from her spot on the floor, and advanced on Weiss. She gently pried the scroll away from the heiress, considering the cracked device for a brief moment.

Features alarmingly neutral, she _snapped _it in half with her bare hands.

Blake handed the two pieces back to Weiss. "Looks like it's broken."

Bits of metal and plastic sprinkled the floor as Weiss stared at the two halves of her shattered scroll. Her face darkening, she drew herself up to match Blake's neutral gaze, "Looks like _you _owe me a new scroll."

Amber eyes flashed. "Fine. But only if you agree never to speak of this again."

"Are you _bargaining _with me over a scroll that you clearly destroyed?" Weiss shoved half of the device at Blake, snarling, "All of my files were on here! Scans of my class notes. _Hours of work _that _you _just broke into pieces."

Blake gripped the half piece of scroll so hard it nearly broke in half again. "Oh, I'm sorry," she snarled right back, "Maybe you should just, what was it again? Lock me up in a _cat carrier_?"

Tap. Tap. Tap.

All eyes turned to the door. Grateful for the interruption, Yang called out to the visitor, "Come in!" She then proceeded to facepalm. Right - this wasn't like Signal - Beacon's doors had locks.

To everyone's surprise, the door unlocked with a familiar _click _and swung open. Glynda Goodwitch stepped through the doorway, the picture of poise and severity. "Team RWBY, I'm here to check on your..." emerald eyes swept the half-wrecked dorm room, narrowing, "condition..."

Weiss paled the instant Glynda crossed the threshold. She hid the broken scroll behind her back and stood speechless under the professor's scrutiny, mind racing. If she'd had time, she could have cleaned up, or at least reported the damage. As it was, well... here they were. She had nothing to say.

Ruby rubbed the back of her neck, still looking a little unsure of what exactly was going on, "... is this a good time for pancakes?"

"It's always a good time for pancakes," Yang replied, pushing herself up off the floor and tripping slightly as she tried to walk. She came to a stop between Weiss and Blake, offering Professor Goodwitch a sleepy smile.

"Sorry about the room, professor. This medication makes me sleepwalk like crazy!" Throwing an arm around each of her two quiet teammates and pulling them close, she continued with a wink, "Don't worry though, they're going to strap me to the bed next time."

Glynda blanched, eyes drifting from the shattered bed frame, to the mangled book case, and down to shards of what looked to be pieces of a scroll on the floor. "...I see."

Just then, Blake wrestled herself free of her partner's grip. She stalked out the front door without glancing back, muttering a curt, "I'll be back later."

"Blake, wait!" Yang released Weiss and stumbled after her partner, stopping after two steps. She turned back for a moment, "I uh, I guess I'll be back too - sorry professor!"

Eyebrows raised into the stratosphere, Glynda called after her haphazardly retreating student, "Miss Xiao Long you are _no condition _to be wandering about the-" the door slammed shut, "- school..."

Glynda stared at the door in disbelief for a moment before slowly turning to face Weiss again, eyes sympathetic. "Is this what you've been dealing with, Miss Schnee?"

"I..." Weiss hesitated as Blake retreated from the room, Yang in pursuit. She kept her posture formal and straight and nodded a little uncertainly, "I mean, yes, Professor. They've been a little... unpredictable. I can pay for the damages."

Glynda suppressed a sigh. She was all too familiar with dealing with unpredictable companions.

"That won't be necessary." She lifted a hand, sending a pulse of purple light through the room, and with a light flick of her riding crop, the room came to life.

The shattered bed frame righted itself, chunks and splinters of wood flying back together like a jigsaw puzzle before settling down on the books that had just slipped into place underneath it. At the same time, the broken bookcase shelf lifted back into place, books and medical supplies flitting around Ruby as they came to rest in their respective spots on the newly fixed shelf.

Everything finally in its proper place, Glynda adjusted her glasses and stood tall, satisfied with her work. It had taken her seconds to fix the damage wrought by her students... Her eyes narrowed. She would have to have a talk with the medical director about releasing students from the infirmary who were still under the influence of mind-altering medications.

Emerald eyes glanced down at the broken bits of scroll on the floor. Wooden bed frames and bookcases were one thing, but... Her gaze shifted to Weiss, who was obviously hiding something behind her back. "I'm afraid I can't fix broken electronics, though." Glynda crossed her arms then, back to business. "What is the status of your team's recovery?"

Weiss was not exactly trained as a doctor and didn't really have a clear idea of how to accurately assess her team's progress. Somehow, none of them had died yet. That had to be good, right?

She hid all traces of her confusion behind her polished manner, "Aside from the effects of the pain medication and any stress they may have put on their injuries because of it, they seem to be improving. Slowly, anyway. The medical staff informed me that the Grimm rat poison is interfering with their auras' natural regenerative abilities somewhat. The antitoxin should take care of that by the time they finish the course, though. Ruby and Yang are due for their next doses in," a glance at the clock, "thirty-three minutes."

While Weiss gave this report, Ruby sat on the floor with her arms crossed on top of her good knee, doing her best to listen, but really she just wanted to sleep. Or eat. She yawned a wide yawn and put her head down.

Glynda nodded, satisfied with the report. Personally, she had never been a fan of Beacon's policy of releasing patients into their teammates' care after being stabilized. It certainly cut down on overcrowding in the infirmary, and while learning about immediate emergency care out on the field was indeed important, these children were training to be hunters and huntresses first and foremost, not physicians. This particular case seemed especially irresponsible, considering the exceptional nature of some of the injuries present.

Her eyes swept over team RWBY's leader dozing on the floor. It looked as though the pain medication was doing its job well enough. She only hoped the same was true of the antitoxin course. Weiss's report of her teammates' improvement, however slight, was encouraging.

It had been nearly a century since the last medically documented case of Grimm rat poisoning, seeing as how traditional horde extermination methods never involved close combat situations. As a result, the antitoxin the medical staff had given their students was... new. Experimental at best. Designed by Beacon's top scientific minds, of course, but largely untested.

Each of the students affected represented a different possible variable. Lie Ren, Ruby Rose, and Yang Xiao Long - short exposure to a large amount of toxin, prolonged exposure to a small amount of toxin, and an unknown, respectively. None of the medical staff were sure how, these differences would affect treatment, if at all. Presumably because of this, Ozpin had specially requested for her to keep a close personal eye on their recovery, a task she accepted without hesitation.

Glynda fixed her gaze back on Weiss. "Well then, it sounds like I have 33 minutes to track down Miss Xiao Long." Her eyes flickered back to Ruby. "Keep a close eye on Miss Rose."

She paused briefly, choosing her next words with care. It wouldn't do any good to worry the heiress over the untested nature of her partner's medication, but she still needed to know if any complications arose.

"If... there is any change in her condition, however slight, see that you report directly to me."

"Yes, Professor," Weiss said even as she questioned the direction. As far as she knew, Glynda wasn't part of the medical staff. Why would she want to know? Well, she had fought the rats alongside them, practically single-handedly holding the Rat King back when it turned its sights towards Beacon. Maybe she felt responsible for her students' injuries.

Settling on that explanation for now, Weiss sidestepped a foot over to prop Ruby as the younger girl tipped over in her sleep. The scythe-wielder slept on, leaning heavily against her partner's leg. The heiress's attention to Glynda remained unbroken. "Is... that all?"

"Yes," Glynda replied, cape swishing as she moved to head towards the door. She paused with her hand on the knob, turning her head slightly. "Keep up the good work, Miss Schnee." With that, she left, her concerned expression mostly hidden as she shut the door behind her.

Weiss relaxed. A few shards of metal and plastic peppered the tile floor as she brought the broken scroll back around to inspect. She understood that Blake was upset- and justifiably so- about having a video taken of her while she was under the influence, so to speak, but honestly she could have just deleted the file. Weiss scowled at the remnants of the device.

Her stomach growled.

"Ugh," she pitched the half-scroll in the throw up trashcan and took Ruby by the back of her collar, dragging her a couple of feet over so she was sprawled half-on, half-off the mattress on the floor.

The younger girl woke up a little, starting up and running her hands over her dark hair to smooth it out. "Uh, sorry, Professor Goodwitch, I... oh. Did she leave?"

"Yes, she went to find Yang," Weiss straightened her jacket. Glynda Goodwitch was truly a huntress to look up to- even mundane tasks like, oh, repairing dorm furniture came easily to her it seemed.

The heiress retrieved Ruby's book bag from the desk by the door where she had thrown it in her haste to stop the video from playing. Fortunately, Beacon's dishes were made of high quality plastics- practically unbreakable. The fruit was bruised but intact.

Weiss crossed back to Ruby with two pancakes on a plate in one hand and a bowl of neatly sliced apples and peaches in the other. She handed the pancakes to Ruby and set the bowl on the floor next to her. "Don't eat too fast, or anything."

"Yang says that you're a 'looker'," Ruby informed her after a moment, scooting the rest of the way onto the mattress. Her one leg got tangled with a blanket, but she couldn't quite get it out, so she left it and concentrated on managing a fork instead.

"That's... disturbing," Weiss raised one eyebrow, seating herself on the edge of her bed.

The bed _Blake _had slept in with her for who knows how much of the night. Ruby had spent a lot of the day there too. Weiss made a mental note to put the sheets in to wash after breakfast and carried the chair from her desk over to sit on instead.

Ruby squinted up at her and said around a mouthful of pancake, "Weiss, why are you so tall?"

"If you weren't drugged out of your mind I would hit you," Weiss rolled her eyes. She took Ruby's fork and turned it around in her hand so she was using the tines instead of the dull end to cut her food. "That's going to be easier."

"It would be even easier with Crescent Rose," Ruby pointed out, mangling another pancake.

With Ruby somewhat settled, Weiss sighed returned to the desk to fix herself a plate of the least syrup-drenched pancakes she could find. Presumably, Professor Goodwitch would be back with Yang before too long. But Blake? Who knew when she would come skulking back to the room.

Weiss set her mouth in a line.

She and the Faunus still had things to discuss.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, I'm too excited about the episode that just happened (oh my word Neo is terrifying yes wonderful), and too SAD that next episode is the finale to think of a proper author's note. **

**In the mean time, thank you all AGAIN for the reviews and follows and just everything, forever, all the time. **

**Hugs,**  
><strong>Defenestrator<strong>


	6. Storytime

**A/N: I swear Defenestrator drags Yang and Blake out of the dorm room half because of the plot, half because she wants me to write Ruby and Weiss being cute. So, well, here's this chapter! **

**- Fiercesomest**

* * *

><p>"Ok Yang, you can do this. One foot in front... of the other... Yeah-auhUG!" A slight misstep sent Yang sprawling face-first into the ground. "Nnnnnno." She pushed herself back up on her arms, then used the wall to stand again. Walking was hard right now.<p>

Everything ached, her vision swam, and her limbs were wobblier than month-old gelatin. None of that mattered though - she was going to find Blake if it killed her. Ouch, and with the way each step made the halls spin, it might.

Slowly working her way along the wall, the brawler squinted down the hallway, blessedly empty due to classes being in session. She had lost sight of Blake almost immediately - that girl was _fast _when she wanted to be.

A grin worked its way across her face. Whatever, it was fine, she had a pretty good idea of her partner's whereabouts anyway. She finally reached the end of the hall, stopping to catch her breath. It was going to be a long way to the library.

* * *

><p>The library in question was silent - exactly what Blake needed as her mind rand circles around itself. She sat quietly on the floor in her favorite hideaway, behind the last bookcase, where the walls met. Fortunately, since there were no books on this side of the bookcase no one ever bothered to venture back this far.<p>

Time was a blur, but she was fairly certain that morning classes had let out over an hour ago. This gave her plenty of time to think, which, sadly, wasn't helping at all. Blake hugged her legs to her chest, resting her head on her knees. Her face burned at the still-recent memory of the video. She had acted like... like a _degenerate_, in front of her entire team.

And _Weiss_. Blake's anger spiked. That spoiled, hateful, _ice queen_. She should have pounced on her a few more times for good measure. Who in their right mind would even record something like that. She'd never expected the heiress to be the blackmailing sort.

Though, she certainly had her own blackmail on Weiss now. Person sized _cat carrier_ - honestly. Of all the spiteful, venomous... Blake frowned at the memory of similar insults hurled at her during the protests she attended as a child. _Shut it before I chain you to a tree in my yard. I'm gonna put you in a cage where you belong. Go back to the zoo with the rest of the animals. _She shut her eyes tight and rubbed her temples, willing the images away.

A small part of her guessed that Weiss hadn't really understood what she was saying, but the rest of her refused to let it slide.

Blake nearly leaped out of her skin when a dusty, bandaged hand came to rest on her shoulder.

"Woah! Blake, why so jumpy?"

"_Yang?_" Blake stared wide-eyed up at her partner, who was kneeling over her with a lazy grin. She rushed to put her hand over the brawler's mouth. "Not so loud," she whispered tersely. It took her a moment to fully take in Yang's disheveled appearance, covered head-to-toe in dust, wearing nothing but shorts and bandages. "Oh for the love of - where is your _shirt?_"

Yang pushed Blake's hand away. "Aw c'mon, it's nothing you haven't seen before," the brawler cheerfully whispered back, wiggling her eyebrows.

A pencil clattered to the floor on the other side of the bookcase.

Blake didn't notice. She squinted up at her partner, taking note of her glazed eyes and shaky movements. "What are you even - how did you _get _here?"

"Air vents," Yang replied with a wink, motioning towards the open grate behind her. "Goodwitch was tailing me, and crawling is so much easier than walking you know?"

"I'm not even going to ask how you know your way through the school's ventilation system."

Yang crossed her arms. "It's common knowledge in my prestigious line of work."

"Pranks are hardly a prestigious line of work."

With a smile and a shrug, Yang moved to squeeze herself in between Blake and the bookcase. Throwing an arm around her partner to create a bit more room in the cramped space, she sat down, squishing Blake up against both herself and the wall. With one last grin aimed at her frowning partner, Yang closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cool metal of the bookcase.

Blake's amber eyes traveled slowly over the peaceful profile of the blonde sitting beside her. With the barest hint of a smile, she rested her head on the brawler's shoulder and shut her eyes as well, content to sit for a while in companionable silence.

* * *

><p>Back in Team RWBY's dorm room, Weiss was her usual disgruntled self and having a breakfast of cold pancakes was doing nothing to improve her mood. Then warm pancakes probably wouldn't have either. She tended to take her meals with a certain degree of efficiency and so finished before Ruby (who only managed one pancake anyway. The second was reduced to syrup-soaked shreds).<p>

"Hold still," Weiss used a stack of damp napkins to wipe down her partner's face.

Ruby tried to duck and get away from the heiress, but the combination of a bum leg and heavy painkillers severely hampered her escaping skills. "Weissss, quit it, it's fine. I'm not a kid."

"Ruby. You have syrup _behind your ears._"

"Adults can have syrup wherever they want."

"Fine," Weiss dropped the napkins in the younger girl's lap, "You finish. Better yet, go wash your hands and do whatever else you need to do while I clean up here."

While Ruby limped to the bathroom, Weiss stacked their plates and silverware on the edge of Blake's desk for easy transport later. She wiped the floor and the bookcase because somehow everything within Ruby's reach had gotten sticky, including the blankets.

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger for a second. Why had she agreed to bring them pancakes? She added this to the list of poor decisions she had made in the past thirty-six hours.

Well, she needed to do laundry anyway. Only the top blanket had gotten the sticky-treatment, so she gathered it up and stripped her own and Ruby's beds of their covers and sheets. She couldn't exactly leave the room at the moment... in fact, considering every other time she had done it, leaving the room at all seemed incredibly unwise... she deposited the bundle near the door and resolved to figure out what to do with it after the rest of her team had returned.

"Bleah," Ruby, having stumbled her way back across the room from the bathroom, collapsed full-length on the mattress on the floor. Her words came out muffled by the pillow, "Is it bedtime?"

"It's not even noon," Weiss dusted her hands off and crossed to the bookcase to prep Ruby and the still-absent Yang's next doses of antitoxin. Ruby groaned a long, disappointed groan at her announcement, so the heiress relented primly, "For you, it can be bedtime."

"Will you tell me a story?"

"I take back my earlier allowance," Weiss focused on her work with the syringe to avoid Ruby's puppydog expression. She knew it was happening. And she was ignoring it.

"Pleeeeease?"

"I'm busy," she drew out the process of filling Yang's syringe with antitoxin. "And I don't know any good stories anyway."

"You could make one up," Ruby suggested, propping herself up off the pillow on her elbows. She thought for a second. "About the north pole."

"The north pole? There's nothing in the north pole."

"There's ice. And you're the ice queen, right? So you could definitely make a story about the north pole." After a moment, she added, "There's also snow."

Weiss capped the syringes, "Ruby..."

"Pleeeeeeeeeease?"

"Ugh, fine, but only if you'll shut up or go to sleep, or something," The heiress turned briefly to glare down at her partner.

Ruby snuggled into the bedcovers and waited.

Weiss gave an aggravated sigh and turned back to arrange the supplies on the bookcase. "Once upon a time, there was a lot of ice and snow, and nothing else. Because it's the _north pole_. The end," she latched the case of antitoxin shut.

Ruby waited for more, but it became quickly apparent that nothing else was coming. (The 'the end' took a second to register.) She frowned a little, "... that wasn't a very good story."

Weiss picked through Ruby's belongings, looking for her scroll while her partner 'demonstrated proper storytelling technique' from the mattress on the floor. The heiress had gone ahead and given her partner her dose of antitoxin; there was still no sign of Yang or Blake.

"... and then, instead of, you know, not saying anything, the mushroom started to sing," Ruby raised a hand into the air, motioned like a conductor- a drunken conductor, maybe- and sang a chlidren's nursery rhyme about huntresses dancing in a circle, facing out to fight the surrounding Grimm.

The lyrics were quite dark, but it was a common enough song for Weiss to know that Ruby was absolutely mangling it. Not that her team leader had an awful singing voice, but her lack of vocal training combined with her current mental state had her missing not just notes, but entire keys. Not to mention most of it came in a half-enunciated mumble. The result was... actually rather childish and sweet. But still terrible.

"Aha," Weiss exclaimed to distract herself from Ruby's singing. She drew the scroll out of the pile of Ruby's laundry and unfurled it. No password. Perfect. Now she had a way of requesting assistance should she need it, as long as Blake didn't decide to show up and go feral again, or something. The heiress set the scroll on her desk and picked up her Grimm studies book from the library.

"Ruby," she interrupted the girl's continued tale in the middle of the hero's fight with a monster that was half-deathstalker, half-nevermore and whose favorite food was human hearts. Where did this girl get such dark material?

She took a seat in her chair, which was still next to the mattress on the floor, "Ruby, If you go to sleep, I'll read to you again."

"Huh?" Ruby took a mental second to get from her story to Weiss's offer, rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand. Her silver eyes were dull with pain meds. It was sunny out, but the light wouldn't really hit their window till later in the afternoon so the room was drowsy and warm. The young team leader shifted onto her side, face half buried in Yang's pillow and words a hazy mumble, "You want to? That'd be okay, I mean, if you wanted to."

"Great. Let me know when you're asleep," Weiss cracked the book open to hunt for the page where she'd left off.

"Mmn," the younger girl was half unconscious anyway. The distraction from her storytelling was all it took for her to slip back into slumber.

A few minutes of blissful quiet passed. Weiss's attention strayed from her book to her partner's peaceful expression. The edge of her mouth quirked up in a brief smile.

"You dunce," she chided, leaning to gently brush the hair out of her partner's face. "That really shouldn't have worked."

But it had. Ruby slept on, lost to the world.

* * *

><p>Small sounds permeated the relative quiet of the library, distant, but still audible to Blake's Faunus ears - the occasional scrape of a chair, the rustle of turning pages, hushed voices. Gentle scratching from what sounded like a pen on paper coming from the desk on other side of the bookcase nearly lulled Blake to sleep, but she fought to stay awake. There were... matters to attend to. Blake opened her eyes, took a deep breath, and broke the silence with a whisper.<p>

"Yang."

The sleepy blonde hummed in response, shifting slightly without opening her eyes.

Blake fixed her gaze on her partner's face. "I need to ask you a favor."

One curious amethyst eye cracked open to meet intense amber. "Yeah?"

"Please... don't tell anyone about last night."

The gentle scratching of pen on paper immediately ceased, but Blake was too focused on her partner to notice, waiting intently for a response.

After a pause, Yang grinned. "Sure. It will be our little secret," she nearly sang, ending her sentence with a wink.

Blake rolled her eyes before lowering them to the floor. "I don't know what happened. I just... lost control." She cringed at the thought of dropping a solid wood bed frame on the already injured brawler. "I'm sorry if I hurt you."

Yang gave Blake's shoulders a squeeze. "Aw Blake, I can take it! Look at me, I'm _fine._" She ignored Blake's incredulous stare. "My bed though... man, we trashed that poor thing - well, actually it was mostly me I guess." she continued, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling.

The crash of a chair toppling over followed by hurried footsteps startled the pair.

Blake glanced at Yang, eyebrows raised and bow twitching slightly, her ears at high alert.

Yang reached over with her free arm and pushed a book out of the way to peek through the bookcase. All she could see was a desk, a pen and a piece of paper on the floor, and a chair upended beside it. She turned back to Blake and shook her head. Nothing was there.

They shared a glance, and shrugged.

* * *

><p>The library entrance was quite a bit noisier as students filed out on their way to lunch, many of them swerving to avoid a particularly severe looking Professor Goodwitch standing just inside the doorway.<p>

Her eyebrow twitched as she glanced down at her scroll - 12:25. Far beyond the 33 minutes she had allotted herself to find the missing members of team RWBY. Even after enlisting the aid of some of the medical staff to help her sweep the school, nothing. The library was her next target in the long list of places left to search.

It baffled her how two heavily medicated and injured students could elude her so thoroughly. Part of her, though she would never admit it, was proud of the high-level evasive ability her students were displaying. It would serve them well in combat.

A flash of color caught Glynda's eye. Her own evasive abilities kicked in as she sidestepped a particularly hurried student running straight past her. Golden eyebrows raised at the sight of Pyrrha Nikos sprinting away down the hall, face as red as the hair on her head...

With a quick adjustment of her glasses, Glynda temporarily ignored her student's strange behavior and strode into the halls of books to continue her search. There was little time to waste.

* * *

><p>Back inside the library, Blake lapsed into silence for a moment, studying her partner. Yang looked about ready to drop at any given second, but here she was, smiling at her like usual. She really needed to get this girl back to their dorm. But... going back meant... Blake's face fell into a scowl. Weiss.<p>

Deep down Blake knew she was going to have to deal with the heiress sooner or later whether she wanted to or not. But that didn't mean she had to be anything less than fully prepared. She needed facts. Blake locked eyes with her partner, the sole surviving neutral witness to last night's events. Perhaps not as reliable as the recording on the scroll, but still worth investigating.

"Yang. Tell me something."

"OK... something." Yang's briefly serious expression broke into a smile as her response earned her a light smack on the arm.

"Focus," Blake chided her obviously addled partner. "I need you to tell me all of what happened. The video showed me part of it but..." But how on earth did she end up in Weiss's _bed_.

Yang's entire face lit up. "Oh, last night? Man, it was great. You were so _cuddly_, but then you tripped me... Oh and Weiss was there... heh, you went after her like crazy. Well, until she freaked out. Then you knocked me out with a bed and I made an awesome pun!" Yang threw her arms in the air with a flourish as she finished her grand tale, completely forgetting to tell the pun itself.

Blake sighed heavily. She really didn't know what she'd been expecting, but this was hardly the detailed description she was looking for. She found herself severely regretting her snap decision to break Weiss's scroll in half. Her eyes widened a fraction. Without that video, the only way to figure out how she ended up in Weiss's bed... was to ask the heiress herself.

Maybe it was better not to know.

"Uh, Blake, you're looking a little pale," Yang's voice cut through Blake's fretting.

Blake rounded on her partner, expression strained. "I do _not _want to talk to Weiss."

After a pause, Yang placed her hands on Blake's shoulders and offered a sleepy smile. "You have to though. We're a team and stuff. Just kiss and make up and it'll be fine."

"Kiss and... what," Blake fought to keep her expression blank.

It took a minute for Yang's thoughts to catch up with her words. "Oh, wait no, don't do that, then Ruby would be really sad and -" Blake's hand suddenly covered her mouth, cutting her words short.

Blake's Faunus ears had picked up the sound of footsteps headed in their direction. She leaned forward and whispered, "Someone's coming."

Yang nodded, leaning back to peer through the bookcase again.

Professor Goodwitch stepped into view.

Blake felt her partner tense up. Just as she was about to say something, Yang's hand reached to cover her mouth, but missed and ended up covering her nose and eye.

The brawler held her breath as she watched her professor right the fallen chair, stoop down to pick up the paper on the floor, read whatever was on it once, twice, and then a third time, before immediately turning on her heel and stalking back the way she came. Yang blinked. "Weird."

Blake pushed Yang's hand away from her face. "Who was it?"

"Professor Goodwitch."

Blake started. "She really _is _tailing you."

"Yup!"

That settled it, they needed to get back to the dorm room sooner than later. Blake already had a criminal record in the real world - she didn't need one at school as well.

"Let's... head back," she whispered reluctantly.

"You got it! Follow me," Yang replied with wide grin.

"Follow - what?" Blake stared for a second as Yang moved towards the air vent and started to climb in. No - there was no way. "You know, we _could _just walk."

"Too late~ can't go backwards~" came the brawler's muffled reply. She was already crawling away.

Blake scowled fiercely at the hole in front of her. Against her better judgment, she followed.

* * *

><p>Hasty footsteps echoed down the halls of Beacon's upper towers. Something was wrong. Something was going on in her school that Professor Goodwitch didn't know about and she didn't like it one little bit. Glynda glanced down at the paper in her hands, reading over the finely-penned words one last time as she neared Ozpin's office.<p>

_Weiss,  
>I've explained everything to everyone. Don't worry, your secret is safe with us. I've thought about things a little more, and I've realized that you're probably doing this to protect Ruby. Please rest assured we will do everything in our power to keep her safe as well. Hang in there.<em>

_Your friend,  
>P<em>

The signature was unfinished, the pen's ink stretching down the page in a single line, as though the writer had hastily abandoned their work. Her emerald eyes flashed, glaring daggers at the otherwise beautifully-scripted letter P.

As much as she didn't want to think it possible that one of her best students was involved in anything furtive, Glynda could only come to one conclusion - Pyrrha Nikos. The girl fleeing from the very library where the note had been lying discarded on the floor. But, if it _was _miss Nikos, why had she been writing this letter to Weiss Schnee? They weren't teammates. What secret were they protecting? How did Ruby Rose fit in?

A frown darkened the professor's face, her eyes narrowed into slits. Word had spread far and wide fairly quickly concerning their students' recent dispatching of a legendary Rat King. If this had something to do with the antitoxin they were developing...

Or worse, if an outside force wanted to get their hands on the Grimm rat toxin itself, still flowing freely in her students' very veins... Perhaps to use as a weapon... Glynda's mind raced, forming possibility after possibility, each progressively more outlandish and alarming than the last.

She reached Ozpin's door at last.

* * *

><p>Paperwork.<p>

If there was one thing Ozpin would prefer to ignore for the rest of his days, it was paperwork.

Fortunately, his sorting system was highly efficient: he had two sleek gray boxes set up on the edge of his desk. One was labeled in neat cursive "Absolutely MUST be dealt with" and contained the highest of the highly important details of the workings of Beacon. All prospective students' transcripts came to this box, as well as reports of his alumni and any write-ups of the notable exploits of his current students.

The other box's label read "To Glynda".

This latter box was currently stacked with minor damage reports, bills from orders of food and new equipment, complaint letters from parents, and the like. The mail had just come in. He stood over the two boxes and flipped through the stack of envelopes for any names he recognized and/or felt like dealing with (there were none) before stacking the rest in Glynda's box.

He evened the precarious tower of mail a bit- Ms Goodwitch did have a thing about being orderly, after all, and she was due to show up at his door anytime- and then he poured himself another cup of coffee and stepped to the window to watch over the combat class being conducted in the fields beyond the courtyard.

_SLAM. _

Ah, and there she was. Judging from the volume of his doors crashing against the backstop, it was something rather serious. Alas, he might have to do some actual work this time.

Ozpin took a long sip of his hot beverage before turning to see the glowering professor. "Something the matter, Glynda?"

Glynda wasted no time in shoving the fine stationary in her hand directly in the headmaster's face. "You tell me."

"Hm," Ozpin took another sip of coffee without moving to take the paper from Glynda's hand. He scanned the paragraph of text, "It seems one of our students has superb handwriting." he turned to stroll back to his desk, "We should consider offering him or her a position in admissions if they decide not to follow the huntress/huntsman career path."

Glynda squinted in exasperation. "Seeing as this was likely penned by Pyrrha Nikos, I don't think it will come to that." With a graceful step and twist, Glynda came to stand by Ozpin's side, holding the letter for both of them to see while she gave her report.

"Miss Nikos was acting strangely when I saw her last. I found this in the farthest corners of the library, abandoned on the floor in apparent haste. The contents suggest that the Schnee heiress is hiding something, and that Ruby Rose is being targeted - by who or what, or even why, I'm unsure."

Rather than launching into her theories, she paused, glancing at Ozpin to gauge his reaction.

The headmaster used his mug to guide the paper out of their line of vision, at the same time tilting his head to his friend, "Glynda, may I offer you some coffee? Or tea, perhaps?"

"No... thank you." Glynda reached out to place the letter squarely in the center of Ozpin's desk, directly in front of his chair.

Moving to lean back on the desk's edge, she tilted her head downwards and fixed the headmaster with a stern gaze over the frames of her glasses. "What you _could _offer me is your opinion on this situation."

"My opinion?" Ozpin's brow arched as he considered, "Well, it seems to me that if indeed Miss Rose is in danger, she possesses at the very least two formidable allies." Miss Nikos and Miss Schnee- plus whoever else Pyrrha had discussed the matter with.

He took a thoughtful swallow of his drink, "Though, I suppose if this is some sort of prank war, she would do well to recruit her sister if she hasn't yet."

Glynda paled at the thought of more pranks - it was not a prospect she wanted to consider. Releasing a small sigh, she crossed her arms. Ozpin did have a point, their students were no pushovers.

Even still, it seemed questionable to ignore matters entirely. She raised an eyebrow. "The possibility of pranks aside, are you suggesting we simply let this go unquestioned? What if there are outside forces involved?"

Ozpin was silent a moment. There was an intensity behind his eyes, but his calm demeanor remained undisturbed, "Glynda. You know- perhaps better than anyone- that our students cannot remain shielded from the evils of this world. They've come here to learn to fight the creatures of Grimm, and very often this task entails facing the dark side of humanity as well. If Miss Nikos and Miss Schnee feel that they are out of their depth, I expect they know that they may always come to us for assistance," He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the school. He glanced over his shoulder, mischief in his smile, "That said, if you wished to take on a small amount of investigating as a side project... as your schedule allows, of course."

Glynda smiled in return. "I think I can make some time."

* * *

><p>The trip through the campus air ducts was cramped, dusty, claustrophobic, but blessedly short. The air vent near the roof of team RWBY's dorm room suddenly flew off, and out tumbled Yang, landing in a heap upside-down. "Woah... when did we rearrange the furniture..."<p>

Climbing down with far more coordination, Blake followed right afterwards, dirty, unhappy, and scowling. She stopped to take a rest, sitting and leaning against the wall, staring off into space. Never again. Never. _Again._

Weiss, hearing the thumps and clangs coming from the ventilation system of all places, had placed her book on her chair and was standing near the end of her bunk when her two teammates came tumbling out.

"Of all the..." Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation before she turned to retrieve Yang's dose of antitoxin, scolding all the while, "Where have you been? We have a _door_, you know."

Neither of the dusty pair offered the heiress a proper response. Yang hadn't moved from her spot, content to drowsily watch an upside-down Weiss advance on her with a syringe.

Blake kept her eyes averted from Weiss, and instead tried to brush some of the dust off of her clothes and out of her now-slightly-grayish hair. Her ears flattened in anticipation, squashing her bow a little as she worked her fingers through the dust laden strands.

The library had given her plenty of time to cool off. She still wanted an apology from the icy heiress, but she really didn't want to start another fight. Blake's brows furrowed as she stared off into space, wondering if it was even possible to achieve the former without causing the latter.

"You're late for this dose," Weiss didn't bother trying to reposition Yang- she simply took her arm, swiped a spot clean with rubbing alcohol, and administered the injection to her as she was, "which means you may have hampered the antitoxin's effectiveness, and means we may need another dose to finish off the course."

The heiress shook the empty syringe (at a safe distance) in front of the brawler's face. "This doesn't exactly run out of the tap- Beacon's medical staff spends considerable time and money procuring supplies like these in order to aid students in proper recovery. So don't be late again." She cut her eyes at Blake as she added, "Granted it wasn't _entirely _your fault."

Blake felt her hackles rise at the obvious jab. Weiss clearly wasn't finished being unreasonable. She whipped her head around, frown set and eyes sharp, ready to speak her mind. Yang beat her to it.

Despite being on the verge of sleep, Yang hadn't missed the jab at her partner either. Her words came slurred and slow as she held her drowsiness at bay with all her might.

"Weisssssss, what... do you call the world's fastest reptile..." She paused, but only for the briefest of seconds before continuing with a grin brighter than the sun itself, "an... insta-gator..." Her ensuing sluggish laughter dragged out into a light snore.

Blake's scowl contorted, threatening to break into a smile.

Weiss stared at Yang a moment and then rolled her eyes. She shook Yang a little to wake her, her scowl deepening as she took in her teammates' general state, "You're both filthy. And Yang, that bandaging job was really never fit to leave the room in the first place. Are you lucid enough to at least clean up so that I can re-do it?"

The heiress didn't deign to address Blake at all- there was still the matter of the Faunus's behavior to be dealt with, but that took second priority to making sure Yang didn't die of rat toxin and/or infection and/or blood loss, and it would continue to take second priority unless Blake decided to do something truly idiotic.

Really, the cat Faunus did seem significantly saner this morning (considering that she had yet to try and physically tackle Weiss) but the incident with the scroll had not scored her any points. Neither had climbing into bed with her in the middle of the night. Honestly. What a mortifying position to have been in. Weiss crossed her arms, waiting for Yang to untangle herself.

A deep, discontented groan accompanied Yang's halting movements as she righted herself, crawled her way to the bathroom, used the doorknob to help herself stand, then slipped inside.

As the door shut behind her partner, Blake quietly took a deep steadying breath. Expression neutral, she looked up at Weiss, and waited.

Weiss kept an eye on Yang till she'd successfully navigated the open space between her and the bathroom. Ruby continued to slumber over on the mattress by the bookcase. Both seriously injured teammates accounted for, the heiress turned her attention to Blake.

"Don't look at me like that," she frowned down at the dusty, bandaged girl, her demeanor ice cold, "Unless you're going to apologize?"

Holding fast to her neutral expression, Blake averted her gaze. Dust clouded around her feet as she stood and continued brushing herself off. "For what it's worth, I do feel bad about breaking your scroll," she said evenly, eyes trained on the floor.

The thing she truly regretted destroying was the video itself, her easy out to the answers she wanted, lost forever... but it was definitely for the best. Finished with her clothes, Blake readjusted her eye patch and dusted off the square bandage on her forehead before dragging her gaze back up to meet Weiss. "Forgive me if I wasn't exactly feeling very happy after seeing your little home video of me."

Weiss stood back closer to her desk while Blake brushed herself off. She could understand wanting to destroy embarrassing footage of oneself; it even crossed her mind that this could be _particularly _the case for Blake, who worked so hard to hide her heritage as a Faunus.

Still, it wasn't as if Weiss would have actually shown the video to anyone who didn't already know. And besides...

"You attacked me," she crossed her arms a little harder, lifting her chin. "Twice."

"I was _under the influence_ of medication designed by _humans _with little regard for the possible side effects a Faunus patient might suffer." Patience already wearing thin, Blake's gaze sharpened alongside her words. "I'm sorry if I hurt you, but I also knocked my own partner _unconscious_, and you don't see her threatening me with cat carriers like I'm some kind of _animal_."

"You were certainly acting the part. Yang's being too drug addled to comment doesn't change the fact," The heiress tossed her snow-white hair over her shoulder, "And are you saying that you _knew _about these 'side effects'? Why didn't you _warn _us?"

"There was no way I could have known what exactly would happen," Blake snapped, clenching her fists. "But as the sole person who _wasn't _drug addled, _you _should have been the first to figure out something was wrong."

"Oh, I _figured it out_," Weiss shot back, flushing at the memory of Blake hanging from a very inappropriately dressed Yang. The heat in her face did nothing to improve her mood, "Why are you trying to make this my fault? I'm not the one who _assaulted_ her teammates and _deliberately_ destroyed people's personal belongings. I've never even heard of pain medication having that sort of effect on the Faunus."

The thought crossed Blake's mind that this particular effect might be largely unknown because the affected Faunus had killed any witnesses. She was certainly feeling a hint of that desire herself at this point.

Her visible eye flashed dangerously. "This is no one's fault, but for some reason you feel compelled to blame everything on _me_. Do you think I _wanted _to do any of that? You think I woke up this morning and thought to myself, 'I should attack Weiss today, that will be great'?"

"I don't know. Did you think that? I appreciate the warning," This was just venomous, spiteful mocking and Weiss had enough presence of mind to recognize that. She tried to take a breath and cool off a bit, so to speak. "In any case, I'm quite sure that you were rational when you shattered my scroll this morning. That's just unacceptable."

"Unacceptable?" Blake straightened her posture, radiating quiet fury. "What's _unacceptable _is that I trusted you with this," she whipped her bow from her head and threw the unfurled ribbon at Weiss's feet, her uncovered ears flattening, "and you've returned it with insults, threats, and blackmail."

Weiss looked up from the ribbon to Blake, her brow furrowed, staring as if the Faunus had just grown a third eye in the middle of her forehead. "What on earth are you talking about?"

Blake's hands unclenched, and her shoulders fell with a quiet sigh. Weiss didn't understand. Of course she didn't, how could she, coming from such a presumably sheltered background?

"Weiss," all the heat of her earlier words vanished, replaced with exhaustion, "why do you think I hide my Faunus heritage? Because I'm ashamed?" Blake closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head, as if to answer her own question.

She locked her gaze on the heiress, looking genuinely tired. "It's because, even when I'm at my best, the second people see these," she gestured to her cat ears, "they treat me like some sort of subhuman, lesser being." Her eyes dropped to the floor. "Just like you did, when you saw me at my worst last night."

"I didn't..." Weiss paused. She hadn't really treated any of her teammates particularly well, at least not compared to when they were fully functioning. But Blake, sub-human? She let her gaze slide diagonally down to the books on her desk while she collected her thoughts, and then offered, "I was... upset. I didn't mean it like that."

Blake crossed her arms, gazing quietly at her ribbon on the floor. "Just because you _didn't mean _to stab someone doesn't mean they won't still bleed."

"Well excuse me for not wanting to spend the evening wrestling with an insane-" Weiss snatched up Blake's ribbon, glaring at her in lieu of another Faunus-themed insult, "... with you." She stood awkwardly at the edge of her desk, stiff and formal and bristling at Blake's platitude.

How did you stab someone accidentally? Either a) the someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time or b) the person with the blade was clumsy and clearly not ready to be in possession of a weapon.

Knowing this, Weiss gripped the black ribbon in her hands and made a weak defense, "You chose a terrible time to lose all rational thought, anyway."

Blake listened quietly, still staring at the spot where her ribbon had been. Weiss's words ran together in her head - excuses, nothing but excuses.

About this time, Ruby stirred, groaning from the mattress on the floor, "Mmrrrrg, is the story over?"

Blake tilted her head slightly at Ruby's question. "Yes, Ruby," her voice was soft as she turned away from the smaller girl to lock eyes with Weiss, "it's over."

Tearing her gaze away, Blake retreated to other side of the room and easily hopped up into Yang's bunk, curling up on her side. The lack of a mattress or any kind of bedding didn't faze her - all that mattered was getting as far away from the stubborn heiress as she possibly could.

Weiss slipped behind a mask of cold detachment as she watched her teammate retreat to Yang's bunk. "Fine then," her tone was clipped. She shoved the ribbon in her pocket, striding to gather up the sheets and bedclothes from beside the door, "I'm taking the laundry."

Ruby struggled up into a sitting position just in time to see the door slam shut. She rubbed her eyes and shoved the blankets off her legs. The room appeared to be empty, but the bathroom door was shut and the shower was running. Ugh, a shower sounded nice. She was all sticky with sweat for some reason.

Ruby collapsed back onto her side. Why had Blake and Weiss been yelling? Why was the room so _warm?_ Her thoughts came all tangled up. Ugh, she hated being on painkillers. Except for the not feeling pain thing. That was kind of awesome. Still. She wiped the hair stuck to her forehead out of her eyes, "Bleah..."

Up in the safety of the solid wood bed frame, Blake listened to the smaller girl move around. She shut her eyes but kept her ears open, resting as best she could. Eventually Ruby settled back down, so with nothing to listen to but the white noise of shower water coming from the bathroom, she let her mind wander.

Much to her chagrin, it kept wandering back to Weiss.

* * *

><p>"You're going to wear a hole in the floor."<p>

Pyrrha stopped pacing mid-stride and looked over at Ren, who was all-too-calmly staring back at her over the book in his hands. She had taken over keeping an eye on him for the time being while Jaune was in class and Nora was away doing the laundry.

Ren had protested of course, since he was normally in charge of his and Nora's laundry, but as usual Nora wore him down in the end. Pyrrha wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

She sat down on the edge of her bed, willing time to move faster so that Nora would return and she could go meet Jaune at dinner. Then she could focus on something other than her letter to Weiss. Or rather, the dubious fate of said letter.

Pyrrha put her face in her hands. "I'm sorry - I just, I can't believe I lost the letter." She had thoroughly scoured the library after the class she'd run to, but her carefully crafted letter was simply nowhere to be found. Her eyes squinted shut as she fought to keep her blush down at the memory of the secret conversation that she'd run from - things she should _never _have overheard.

Ren turned a page in his book, flinching slightly as he moved. "It will turn up."

Pyrrha paled, instantly solving that pesky blushing problem. "That's what I'm afraid of."


	7. Fever

**A/N: Welcome to the second RWBY hiatus! How is everyone holding up? Hopefully better than everyone in this chapter, aahahah, ahah! ...Enjoy!**

**Hugs,**  
><strong>Defenestrator<strong>

* * *

><p>The laundry room for Team RWBY's wing of the dorm was located at the far end of the hall. Rows of washers and dryers that at one point were probably top-of-the-line stood along the stone walls. Sunlight snuck in through a narrow window near the back corner. Batches of clothes and armor that had seen better days (that had certainly seen better days before a clueless student tried to put them through the dryer on high) were heaped on top of the beat-up, white machines, or in baskets on the floor.<p>

Classes were still on, so the place was empty except for Weiss. The heiress shoved her stack of sheets and pillowcases and whatnot into one of the few working washers. The red blankets she put in another. A few drops of liquid spattered onto the red fabric. She swiped the back of her hand across her face; it came away wet.

"I didn't do anything _wrong_," she shut the lid with a little too much force. Hurting Blake—hurting her teammate was her fault. Weiss couldn't even tell how deeply she'd wounded her. But it wasn't as if she'd wanted to. Not really, anyway. She hadn't been trying to. But she was tired and stressed and when she opened her mouth…

Weiss braced her hands on the edge of the machine, shutting her eyes and letting that mask she used fall away for a second. "Why can't I just…" she clenched her fists and choked on the rest of her sentence.

Then the door to the laundry room swung open.

"So THIS is the mystical land of the laundry machines…"

Oh _no_. Weiss scrubbed at her eyes and straightened. Dust, where was the detergent? She had to get this started and get out before—

"Oh, heya, Weiss!"

Too late. Weiss whirled as Team JNPR's hammer wielding psychopath plunked a basket of laundry down on the machine next to hers. Nora's grin shifted into a surreptitious glance. Left. Right.

"So…" the orange-haired girl cupped her hand around her mouth, "how's that thing we're not supposed to talk about?"

"…I have no idea," Weiss schooled the shake from her voice, ruthless with practice. "Look, I just need to get this—hey—!" she stumbled back as Nora leaned in close.

"… have you been crying?"

"For your information I was _not_—I just—soap. I got soap in my eyes," Weiss held up her hands to keep the other girl at a distance, "I'm leaving. I just need some detergent."

"Why don't you use the soap you got in your eyes?" Nora frowned, tapping her finger on her face alongside her own teal-colored eyes.

"I-it ran out."

But something had clicked in Nora's mind. She vaulted up to sit on top of Weiss's machine. "Ohhhh, so you _were _crying. I gotcha. Hey, no worries." The energetic girl fell silent, swinging her legs like a kid.

"Um," Weiss had found a bottle of detergent tucked up against one of the other machines. She would replace it the next time her team made a town run but for now _thank goodness it was there_. To Nora, she said, "Could you move?"

"Oh. So you don't want to talk?"

"… no offence, but I… don't really know you very well," Weiss watched the other girl cautiously, detergent gripped tight in case she needed to fend her off or something.

But Nora just shrugged a little. "Okay then." She slid off the top of the laundry machine and shifted her basket so she could start loading hers up. "Do you know if this one works?"

"It should," Weiss kept Nora in her peripheral vision as she measured detergent into a cap and poured it into her two machines, but the red-headed wonder just stuffed her own laundry into her own washer and doused it with her own detergent. She was even fairly quiet about it, other than humming a contented, aimless tune.

Weiss cleared her throat after a moment of regaining her composure, "… are you sure you should wash all those colors together like that? And that coat looks like it should be dry cleaned."

"Um… wellll… oh well," Nora pressed the button to start the cycle. She flashed the heiress a smile, "Thanks, though. And hey, if you ever need to not-cry about anything, you can come over to our room. Ren's _really _good at making people feel better. One time, he made me these pancakes and they were amazing…" she paused mid-tangent, "…but you've got to go, right? Anyway, they were super good."

"Yeah… right," Weiss started her own washers, tentatively returned Nora's farewell wave, and took the opportunity to escape.

Once outside, she breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

Really... that hadn't been so bad, though. Considering her last encounter with Nora, anyway. It had even killed a little time. But… she still couldn't quite bring herself to go back to the room. Not yet. So she squared her shoulders and headed to the library instead.

* * *

><p>An especially chipper bird right outside the window snapped Blake out of a dreamless sleep. She must have drifted off. She considered growling at the bird for ruining her nap, but her stomach beat her to it, growling with more ferocity than a creature of Grimm.<p>

Suppressing a groan, Blake rolled over, squinting at the dull ache emanating from behind her covered eye. A quick glance at Ruby's alarm clock told her that it was nearly time for the day's final class period to start. No wonder she was hungry. She hadn't eaten a thing all day.

Doing her best to keep out of sight, Blake sat up only slightly and scanned the room. Weiss hadn't returned. In fact, the room was empty save for Ruby sprawled out in the middle of the mattress on the floor.

Blake's eyes narrowed as she sat up the rest of the way and inspected the smaller girl from her high perch. Ruby's face was flushed, and her dark brows were knit close together in what looked like a pained expression.

Hunger immediately forgotten, Blake leaped down to her teammate's side. Up close, she could hear Ruby's labored breathing. With a quick swish of her head to get her hair behind her shoulder and out of the way, Blake leaned forward to touch her forehead to Ruby's. She pulled back almost immediately, as if singed by the sheer heat radiating from the younger girl's skin. A fever.

Blake's eye darted to the bathroom - a cold compress could help. She got up and went towards the door, stopping when she realized she could still hear the shower running. One eyebrow arched, she slowly opened the door. "Yang," she announced clearly, "I'm coming in." She stepped inside.

No reply came.

Blake's brows furrowed. "Yang?"

She stepped further into the bathroom. The shower on the end was clearly running, the frosted glass door was shut, but there was still no reply. There were also no discarded bandages or clothes, anywhere. Anxiety on the rise, Blake threw privacy out the window and moved to properly look through the closed shower door. She saw the silhouette of a heap on the floor.

"Yang!" Blake threw the shower door open in alarm. The sodden brawler was sprawled out on her side underneath the stream of running water, shorts, bandages, and all. With a sharp intake of breath, panic gripped Blake for a terrifying moment - then she noticed the even rise and fall of her partner's chest.

Yang was sound asleep. Blake took a step back and pinched the bridge of her nose with shaky fingers. One day, these sisters were going to be the death of her.

* * *

><p>Weiss put her head down in her arms at one of the tables tucked way back in the reference section, still trying to grasp what exactly had gone wrong.<p>

She knew _about_ the Faunus. One side of them, at least. The White Fang had terrorized her family and the families of anyone associated with them for years. People disappeared or were murdered in the streets by the radicals. Weiss shut her eyes harder, balling her fists and drawing her knees up closer under the table.

She hated them.

Her father hated them.

Her father hated a lot of things.

Blake wasn't part of the White Fang, though.

Many Faunus weren't. She didn't know the exact percentage. But she hadn't treated Blake like a criminal, had she? Well, she _had _broken her scroll. On purpose. The dark, smoldering hurt in her teammate's eyes before she leapt up to Yang's bunk stuck in her mind.

Weiss didn't really care about the scroll anyway, just the principle of the matter. She tried telling herself that the Faunus girl was just thin skinned and couldn't own up to the way she'd acted, but that was very obviously false considering everything she had doubtless gone through to get to Beacon. Even if that were the case… Weiss had been... somewhat less than understanding, she supposed.

Still. She and Blake were on the same team. The heiress straightened in her chair. She was ill-equipped to metaphorically patch up this sort of injury, but maybe she could find a book on Faunus physiology, or a guide to dosage adjustments for medication for Faunus.

* * *

><p>Blake left Yang in the shower for the time being - the sleep was probably doing the brawler some good anyway. Returning to her originally intended task, she pulled a washcloth from the sink, ran it under cold water, then folded it into a neat square on her way back to kneel at Ruby's side. Gentle fingers pushed back the hair plastered to Ruby's forehead before setting the cold compress in place.<p>

Ruby groaned. Her whole body felt like it was made of lead, or concrete. Something heavy. Even her eyelids felt like they weighed about thousand pounds each. She didn't bother opening them when something cold got set on her forehead.

"Weiss, I don't feel so great," Ruby mumbled thickly.

Blake frowned down at the smaller girl. A selfish part of her was glad the heiress was keeping her distance, but the rest of her flooded with guilt at Ruby's simple statement. It was clear younger girl wanted - _expected_ Weiss to be by her side. But, because of their fight, the heiress had fled the room.

It wasn't fair to Ruby. As disenchanted as she was with Weiss at the moment, Blake had grown fond of her enthusiastic team leader. _She_ should have been the one to leave the room. Then at least Ruby would still have her partner, friend - girlfriend? - around to keep her company. Blake's gaze flicked to the door and back. "Weiss... isn't here."

The younger girl, with a great effort, stirred, shifting to see who she was talking to if it wasn't her partner. "Blake? Hey." She greeted her with a small sort of half-grin. "Is your eye doing okay?"

Blake relaxed upon seeing Ruby's half-smile, returning it with one of her own. "It's fine," she lied through her teeth, ignoring the dull ache lingering behind her eye patch. "You, however, seem intent on copying your big sister." She placed the back of her hand on Ruby's neck and frowned. "You're burning up," she pulled her hand away. "Can I get you anything?"

"Mnnng," Ruby wasn't hungry, or thirsty, or anything. Just hot and kind of dizzy. She tried shutting her eyes tight, but it didn't help much so she turned over onto her other side so she could face Blake better. The washcloth slid off of her forehead, but she didn't really pay attention. Instead, Ruby became dimly aware that her sister was missing. Had she ever come back from before? She couldn't remember. "... did Weiss go to find Yang?"

Blake rescued the fallen washcloth and held it to Ruby's neck, turning her head slightly to avoid meeting the searching silver gaze aimed in her direction. "Weiss went to do laundry. I... don't know when she'll be back." Shifting into a cross-legged position, she pushed all thoughts of the heiress from her mind and did her best to offer Ruby an encouraging smile. "Yang is... showering. So to speak."

"Doing laundry in the shower... that's kind of weird?" Ruby's words came out in a slow, sleepy tangle. She reached out and patted Blake's hand clumsily, "Don't be sad, Blake. Your smile looks kinda like you're sad, but it's okay."

The perceptive statement caught Blake off guard. Her 'kinda-sad' smile faltered as guarded amber met intuitive silver. How was it that this girl could be so optimistic about an unknown problem, and somehow make it seem so convincing? As nice as it would be if Weiss suddenly came waltzing back through the door ready to reconcile, Blake was a realist - she had a feeling it wouldn't be so simple.

Part of her wondered if Weiss would ever _want _to reconcile, and as angry as she was at the heiress, the thought of having permanently lost a friend dragged her mood into the depths. She found herself unable to reply, and unable to stop her eyes from watering.

Ruby just couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, which was too bad because Blake really did seem sad. The scythe-wielder sighed and tried to ignore how hot and miserable she was, "It's no fun being sick, huh?"

Blake watched Ruby's eyes drop shut, so she closed hers as well, willing herself to calm down. Her reply came evenly. "Ruby, I'm not sick, I-" a long low growl from her stomach cut through the room. Her eyes slid open again in an embarrassed squint. "... I'm hungry."

Vision clearing a bit now that she had immediate tasks to occupy her thoughts, Blake eyed the plate of pancakes sitting on her desk. Maybe a decent meal would help her feel better - she hadn't eaten since that tuna sandwich the day before.

A thought suddenly struck her, driving her eyebrows up into her hairline. Yang hadn't eaten anything either... the brawler hadn't so much as touched a scrap of food outside of a single cookie since their morning in the _infirmary_. No wonder Yang was out cold in the shower, she probably collapsed from _hunger_. Black ears twisted around towards the bathroom. She could still hear the shower running. Oh, _Dust_, she'd forgotten to turn the water off.

Taking care to make sure the washcloth stayed in place, Blake gently pulled her hand out from underneath Ruby's and stood up. "Ruby, will you be ok on your own for a second?"

"'course. I don't even need a night light anymore," Ruby informed Blake, though her words came out a little less than intelligible through her drowsiness.

A small smile worked its way across Blake's features as she gazed at her fearless team leader. "..._cute_." With a quick shake of her head, she made her way to the stack of pancakes, grabbed them along with a fork, then headed into the bathroom. She paused in the doorway to look back at Ruby. "I'll be right back." With that, she made a beeline to the lone running shower.

* * *

><p>Weiss's brief search for literature on dosage adjustments for Faunus wound up being fruitless. Oh, the books existed- and more than a few of them were available to Beacon's students- but they were written for medical students and pharmacists. Not for the casual reader, or anyone who didn't happen to have a full laboratory and a working knowledge of at least three dozen types of medications handy.<p>

Of course, she could certainly have puzzled it out given enough time, but really what was the point when she didn't have the tools to make the adjustments anyway? Most of them called for additions of certain substances, or reductions of others from pills containing more than one. Mixing medications at all seemed like risky business- Weiss decided to stick to basic first aid and leave most of the chemistry to the medical staff.

She snapped the last book shut and stacked it neatly on the open space on the shelf reserved for books that needed re-shelving. It was high time she got back to the room to check on her team, after all. A glance at the clock. The cafeteria was about to open for dinner. How she really only had a couple of pancakes for lunch? No wonder she was so hungry.

The heiress left the library, head up and shoulders square, but secretly she dreaded getting back to the room. Something always happened when she left, and it was never a good something. And besides, she would still have to deal with Blake. She closed her hand on the ribbon in her jacket pocket. Best to just get it over with.

* * *

><p>Cold spray hit Blake in the face as she neared the open shower door. Yang was right where she'd left her. Taking care to avoid the slick spots where water had splashed, Blake set the plate of pancakes on the floor. "Yang," she called to her soggy mess of a partner, "get up." Her command was met with silence. She tried again, a bit louder. "Yang, come on, I brought pancakes."<p>

More silence. Blake sighed. She was going to have to get a little wet. Carefully, she leaned over into the shower, flinching at the ice-cold temperature of the water, and turned it off.

"...hot..."

Blake looked down. Below her, Yang had started to come around, aimlessly shifting about on the floor and muttering something about ice cream. She raised an eyebrow. "I think the word you're looking for is cold."

One amethyst eye finally cracked open. "...Blake?" Yang lifted her head and looked around. "Why are we in the shower?"

"You fell asleep."

"Oh..." Yang let her half-soaked partner pull her up into a sitting position leaning against the wall. She smirked. "So, are you here to help me shower?"

"No."

"Aw."

With a quick eye roll, Blake left for a moment, then returned with the plate of pancakes and shoved it at Yang. "I'm here to make sure you eat." She handed her the fork. "Now eat."

Yang's face lit up. "Yes _ma'am_."

The ferocity with which the brawler attacked the food in front of her startled Blake. "Save me a couple though."

One short nod, and Yang was already moving on to her third pancake. Taking care to locate a relatively dry spot on the wall, Blake crouched down next to Yang and leaned back, watching her partner like a hawk. Those bandages were an unsalvageable mess, but her extended rinsing seemed to have more-or-less removed the grime she'd picked up from the air vents - though, that was quickly being replaced by syrup and bits of pancake.

In less than a minute the brawler inhaled over half of her mountain of sugar, but with the mess she was making, Blake couldn't help but wonder how much of it was actually making it into her mouth. She reached a hand over to brush off an especially large bit of pancake stuck to her partner's cheek, but recoiled immediately. Yang's skin was radiating scorching heat.

Her brows furrowed in confusion as Yang glanced in her direction. Hadn't this girl just been sleeping under an ice cold shower? "Yang - why are you so hot?" Blake instantly regretted her choice of words as a huge grin spread across Yang's face.

"I ask myself that every morning when I look in the mirror."

"No, really, you..." Blake's eye widened, "are on fire."

"Aw thanks, Blake. You know you're pretty good looking yourself."

Blake got to her feet and backed away towards the corner of the shower. "No, Yang, you are _literally on fire._"

Yang glanced down at herself. Sure enough, she was emanating flames, and they were growing. She dropped the pancakes and stood up. "_Woah_, uh, I'm not sure why I'm doing this. I'm not telling me to do this."

Blake found herself pressed against the shower tiles to avoid the expanding wall of fire blocking her exit. Her tone was surprisingly calm. "Can you make it stop?"

Panic started to rise in the brawler's voice, mirrored by her flames rising in intensity. "I'm _trying _- I don't think it's - this has never happened before!" They both jumped as Blake's shirt caught fire. "Oh _jeeze_, the water! The water!"

Blake didn't need to be told twice - she grabbed for the shower faucet beside her and twisted it to full blast, dousing them in a downpour of tepid water and disintegrating the remaining pancakes. The flames dispersed in a burst of steam.

They stood still for a moment before confused amethyst finally ventured over to meet equally confused amber. Blake sat down first, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes. Yang sat next to her, staring out into space.

"So... can we _not _tell Weiss about this?"

Blake cracked an eye open to gaze blankly at the sheepish brawler. Slowly, her lips quirked into a smile. "Sure. It will be our little secret." Yang smiled in return. They lapsed into another companionable silence as Blake leaned back and focused solely on the pleasant sensation of water falling all around her. She would check on Ruby in a minute, but for now, she may as well rinse off while she was here.

* * *

><p>Jaune, blond swordsman extraordinaire, stood near the head of the line waiting for the cafeteria to open, one arm curved around a space as if protecting an imaginary friend from the organized mob of students chatting, laughing, or just standing in exhaustion after classes, waiting for food. His own armor was scuffed and dented from his last combat practice. All of his marks said he was improving! Slowly. Probably his professors just felt bad for him. He sighed. At least his team was all for him.<p>

Speaking of which, he craned his neck to look down the hall, scanning for Pyrrha's shock of red hair- he'd expected her to get here first since she hadn't had classes or anything, but there was no sign of her. She must have gotten distracted.

When he turned back around, he found himself face-to-face (well, kind-of shoulder-height-to-face, anyway) with a very angry Weiss Schnee.

"Eep!" He started back, threw one hand out to protect himself.

The heiress watched, not amused, and crossed her arms imperiously. "Are you saving a spot in line?"

When he realized that she wasn't immediately going to slaughter him, he relaxed a little, "Uh... yes?"

"Good," She tossed her hair back over her shoulder and stepped into his imaginary-friend space, shoving his arm away, "I'm taking it."

"Hey, wha- I- um... okay?" Jaune cast a glance at the other students in line, but they'd gotten enough entertainment out of his space-reserving technique to allow the heiress to jump in line without complaint. He stood there helplessly, rubbing the back of his neck, "Yeah. So..."

Weiss held her hand up, cutting him off. "Not in the mood."

She'd gotten as far as the corridor outside her team's dorm room before realizing that she couldn't show up empty handed after that argument. She hadn't meant to make Blake so upset, and something like this certainly wasn't worth risking their whole team dynamic over.

In any case, Weiss might not be able to fix things, but she could do better at least. And 'better' certainly included keeping her teammates from starving to death in their dorm room. Trusting Blake to take care of things for a few extra minutes probably wouldn't hurt.

Meanwhile, Jaune tried again, "So you know, if you ever need a hand with anyth-"

"Still not in the mood," Weiss turned her head sharply away from him, "But thank you."

* * *

><p>All the way down near the end of the hall, Pyrrha finally found her way to the back of the dinner line. It had taken a miracle to escape from the dorm room once Nora had come back from her domestic excursion. Her already-excitable teammate was twice as energized upon returning from the laundry room, bursting with the desire to recount in full detail the run-in she'd had with none other than Weiss Schnee.<p>

Nora's account was long, rambling, and full of bizarre digressions, but she made one thing clear - the heiress had been crying. The thought made Pyrrha feel worse than ever for losing her letter of encouragement to Weiss. Maybe the original had simply been thrown away by a well-meaning custodian. Perhaps she could just rewrite it...

Eyes downcast as she dwelled on the plight of both her friend and her letter, Pyrrha didn't notice the figure stopping to stand directly behind her until a hand came to rest on her shoulder.

"Miss Nikos."

Pyrrha turned around and blinked when she found green eyes that matched her own. "Professor Goodwitch," she stated simply, smiling through her surprise.

Glynda returned the smile with an even gaze. "May I speak to you, privately," she asked in a tone that suggested 'no' was not a viable answer.

The smile gracing Pyrrha's face faltered for a moment. "Of course, Professor." Her eyes flickered to the line of students ahead of her, catching a glimpse of blonde and white up near the front. "Right... now?"

"Yes."

The hint of a smile that passed across her professor's face alleviated some of the apprehension building in Pyrrha's chest at the unusual request.

Glynda turned and began walking down the hall, away from the cafeteria. "Come with me."

With one last glance at her classmates, Pyrrha hastened to follow after her professor, curiosity and anxiety dancing side by side in her veins.

* * *

><p>Back at the head of the line, Jaune was still trying to decide whether the 'thank you' was a good sign, or a neutral sign, or if Weiss was actually still really angry at him over the whole mentioning-her-making-out-with-Ruby-to-Nora thing... when the doors opened and the heiress brushed past him, heading for the drink station.<p>

Jaune tried to stammer a "see you later" but gave up halfway through and followed the line to pick up a tray. It was probably better not to press his luck. He cast another glance back through the entrance and down the hall. Where had Pyrrha gotten to anyway?

* * *

><p>One minute turned into several. Blake wasn't sure how long she'd spaced out for, but the dripping blonde hair in her face from the head resting on her shoulder meant it had at least been long enough for Yang to doze off again. "Hey," she gently prodded the sleeping brawler's side, earning a muffled groan of protest. She flicked her partner's forehead.<p>

"Ok, _ow_," Yang winced, finally sitting up straight.

"Are you going to catch fire again if I turn this off?" Blake gestured to the shower faucet.

"That's... a good question," Yang replied, pausing to push her drenched hair out of her face as water continued to rain down on them. "Let's try."

Casting a skeptical glance at her partner, Blake pushed herself up off the ground and shut the water off. They waited. No flames.

"All right, so that was just some weird fluke or something I guess!"

Eyes narrowed in suspicion, Blake knelt down and leaned forward to press her forehead to Yang's.

"_Hey_, what are you-"

Blake pulled back, frowning. "You're still burning up."

A drop of water hit Yang perfectly on the nose. "Oh, I'm just naturally war-ahh, aaa-ahhhh," she turned her head to sneeze, and along with it came a giant ball of flame that erupted from her mouth not unlike dragonfire.

They both stared in awe at the singed shower wall. Slowly, Yang pointed at the scorch mark, as if willing it to explain itself. "OK, that's _not _normal."

Blake tore her eyes away from the burnt tiles that _could have been her face _and crossed her arms. "You don't say."

"I'm serious, this is not how my semblance is supposed to work! This is weird! It's like I have no control... it's like..."

"Energy incontinence?"

"Blake no. Well, actually yes, I guess? But just no. Of all the words you could have used."

A brief smile flickered across Blake's face before slipping into a contemplative frown. "Maybe... it's a side effect," she mused.

Golden eyebrows arched. "Like, from the poison?"

"Or from the antitoxin, who knows."

Yang's face fell. "Then, what am I supposed to do about it?"

Doing her best not to slip on the wet tile, Blake stood, pulling Yang up with her. "You're going to be extra careful." A light tug on the brawler's hand had her following Blake out of the shower and into the bathroom proper. They were tracking water everywhere, but it could be cleaned up later. "And... try not to set me on fire while I redo those bandages."

Yang nodded resolutely, clenching a fist. "I'll do my best!"

Blake smiled, grabbing one of the extra towels from under the sink and proceeding to dry herself off as best she could. "Good. The sooner we get this done the sooner we can check on Ruby's fever."

"Ruby has a _fever?!_" Yang's hair and shoulders burst into flames.

On instinct, Blake threw her damp towel over her partner's head, immediately squeezing the fabric closed with an impromptu hug and snuffing out the fire before it could get worse. "This does _not _qualify as being extra careful," she growled softly. A muffled apology came from inside the towel.

Yang pulled the towel off of her head the second Blake released her. "Is Ruby ok?"

"She's fine," Blake replied with as much certainty as she could. It was only a fever. Probably. Maybe. It needed to be.

The brawler's shoulders relaxed visibly. "All right. Then yeah, let's do this!" She pulled her hair around to her front and got down on her hands and knees. "Ready when you are."

With an eye-roll and a slight smile, Blake took the last of the gauze and sterile pads from under the sink and placed them on the counter top before setting to work on her partner's sorry excuse for bandages.

* * *

><p>Ruby was having a dream.<p>

She dreamt that the late afternoon sun was shining in the window, easing its way in a golden stripe across the floor. The others- at least Blake and Yang- were in the bathroom or standing out in the hall (she couldn't tell) having a very involved conversation about weaponry, and she wanted to join in.

Kicking free of the blanket, she got to her feet and walked to the door. Her limbs felt heavy, but normal otherwise. It was hard to keep her eyes open, though. Just as she reached for the doorknob, they drifted shut.

When Ruby opened them again, she was back lying on the mattress on the floor. Huh. She lay there a moment or two. Had she used her semblance to zip back into bed by accident? Blake and Yang continued their conversation out in the hall, their voices distinct but their words muddied and lost. Ruby pushed herself up and tried for the door again.

Another blink, and she was back on the bed, a little dizzy and more than a little confused. When she closed her eyes, somehow she was warping back to her bed.

Well, no problem- she would just keep her eyes open.

This was easier said than done because her eyelids were so heavy. The longer she kept them open, the heavier they got till she just had to blink, and then poof! She was back in bed.

"Rrrrrg," she growled, gripping fistfuls of her hair. It was like looking into the sun- her eyes just squinched shut no matter what she did.

Okay. So maybe if she was just really, really fast. Speed was her thing- she would open her eyes, dash to the door, and ta-da! Freedom!

The door's lock clicked, like someone was coming in.

Ruby sat up. Whatever mysterious force was keeping her eyes from opening dissipated.

Perfect.

The door swung open, and she lunged forward, blowing past a very startled Weiss and into the hall where she collapsed in a heap against Team JNPR's door. Rose petals skittered across the floor in her wake.

"Ouch," she clutched her injured leg and her head at the same time. The pain in her thigh cut through her feverish haze like a knife. "_Ow_..."

"Ruby!" Weiss abandoned the cup of soup and stack of sandwiches in her hands on Blake's desk. Her boots swished through the scattered petals as she knelt at her side to inspect the damages, "Ugh, what were you thinking?"

"I was just trying... trying to... uh..." why weren't Blake and Yang out here? Hadn't she heard their voices? Ruby let Weiss help her sit up. The younger girl sneezed, a few crimson petals tumbling from her hair into her lap. "Ugh."

"What-" Weiss's brow creased as she felt Ruby's forehead, "You have a fever."

JNPR's door opened and Nora poked her head out. Weiss fell backwards in her hurry to put distance between herself and her partner.

"Someone knock?" the orange-haired girl took in the scene, "Ruby, did you knock with your head?" she rapped her own head with her knuckles, frowning, "That must hurt."

"Yeah, kinda... but I'm A-okay," Ruby made an OK sign with one hand and rubbed her head with the other, grinning ruefully.

"It was just an accident," Weiss assured the other girl, "Everything's fine."

"Good deal. So I guess that other thing is going well, too," Nora gave the pair two thumbs-up, "Your secret is safe with me!... though you might want to go back into your room if you don't want random people to come along. But whatever. Here, I'll help!"

"Secret?" Weiss's expression darkened, "What are you-"

But Nora already had Ruby hoisted halfway across her shoulders and was hauling her back to her own dorm room. "Aaaaaaand here you go!" She dumped the bewildered girl on the mattress on the floor. "It's probably my turn at chess, so I'm going back. Keep feeling better!" Nora waved to Ruby and jogged back across the hall. Weiss stared after her. She got the feeling that Pyrrha's explanation to her teammates the other day had left something to be desired.

"Whoa, that was crazy," Ruby untangled herself and repositioned her leg so it was more comfortable. She brushed at rose petals that insisted on appearing for no reason. How strange. "I must be really sick- what was she talking about, even?"

"Nothing. Absolutely _nothing_," Weiss said through gritted teeth, helping to straighten the bed covers so they weren't all in a huge wadded up ball. She paused when she observed the petals spontaneously dropping onto the blanket every time Ruby moved.

"Uh..." Ruby sneezed again, and more of the offending foliage scattered across Weiss's lap.

She swatted them off. "Ugh, _Ruby_, did you just sneeze rose petals on me?! That's disgusting!"

"I didn't mean to," Ruby sniffed. It was still so hot and stuffy and she was tired, but she was also a little mystified. Ruby held up her hand and turned it over. Petals fell, as if any motion at all was enough to summon them. They didn't dissipate right away either. "This is kind of weird."

"Yeah..." Weiss dipped her hand into her pocket for Ruby's scroll. This... was probably worth mentioning to Professor Goodwitch. She gave the rest of the room a brief glance while she typed a quick note. Nothing seemed to have been destroyed. "Are the others here?"

As soon as the words left the heiress's mouth, the bathroom door swung open to reveal her remaining teammates. Blake froze mid-step through the doorway, going rigid at the sight of ice blue eyes and snow white hair. Her own amber eye ran a marathon, darting in quick succession from Weiss, to the sandwiches on her desk - she was _so _hungry and she smelled _tuna _- then briefly back to Weiss before finally dropping down to the floor, radiating uncertainty.

Squeezing past her immobilized partner, Yang emerged second - clean, mostly dry, and freshly bandaged from head to toe. "Ruby~!" Ignoring everything else in the room, she made a beeline for the younger girl and enveloped her in a hug, pressing their faces together and causing a fresh shower of red petals.

"Yang! Hot! Ouch!" Ruby squeaked, flailing in her sister's grasp. Rose petals fell in a flurry; the ones that came into contact with Yang's skin shriveled, "Turn down the heat!"

"Oh, sorry sis!" Yang pulled back slightly, blinking down at her little sister. "Huh, you don't _feel _like you have a fever."

Weiss had steeled herself to talk with Blake, but it would have to wait. If Ruby's semblance was acting up Yang's probably was too, and while rose petals were fairly harmless, fire was not. She shoved Ruby's scroll back into her pocket and was on her feet in a second, hands out to separate the two (though she was wary of actually touching Yang. Or Ruby, for that matter).

"Quick," she ordered the blonde firebrand, "stand in the middle of the room. Don't touch anything flammable."

Weiss noted that Yang's bandages had been redone, and quite professionally at that. She glanced at Blake, her guard up and her gaze hard.

Blake's ears flattened under the heiress's scrutiny, but she simply crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame, eyes trained resolutely to the floor.

With one final squeeze, Yang released Ruby completely and leaned back on her hands, looking anywhere but Weiss's face. "Haha Weiss, what are you talking about, flammable things." Smoke began to pour from the corners of her mouth. "Why would you be worried about something like that?"

Weiss turned back to Yang, brow rising with alarm at the sight of the smoke, "Get over here right now! I swear, if you set off the smoke alarm I'm going to shove you out in the hall and let the sprinklers put you out."

"Psshh, like sprinklers could put _me _out," Yang shot back with a smirk. She caught sight of the trails of smoke rising above her head mid-eyeroll and traced them back down to her own face. She blinked. "Oh. That's new."

Ruby continued to shed petals as she gripped the bookshelf and tried to get up, "Whoa, wait, let's get a bucket of water or something."

Weiss whirled on her team leader, pointing at her and commanding, "You _sit_. You," to Yang, and then pointing to the bare tile floor, "right here. And you-" she turned to Blake, faltering, "You... could you... get me a wet towel or something before the dorm burns down."

Slowly, Blake's head rose, ears perking up at being addressed directly. She locked eyes with Weiss, gaze intent and searching. The heiress's attempt at cordiality did not go unnoticed. Finally, with a quiet nod, she slipped back into the bathroom.

* * *

><p>The walk to the nearest empty classroom felt fairly quick, but as Pyrrha stepped inside the small space and heard her professor shut the door behind them, anxiety finally claimed victory over curiosity. Professor Goodwitch motioned for her to sit, and so she did, choosing a chair at the table closest to the door.<p>

Glynda regarded her student from the other side of the table for a moment. Without pretense, she pulled a familiar piece of stationary from her sleeve and wordlessly placed it on the smooth surface between them. Pyrrha's face drained of all color at the sight of her own handwriting staring back up at her. Her letter to Weiss.

Pyrrha's reaction was all the confirmation Glynda needed to identify the letter's author. Ozpin may have been the type to speak in riddles and take roundabout measures of obtaining information, but Glynda preferred the direct approach. Expression neutral, she adjusted her glasses and brought all of Pyrrha's coherent thoughts to a grinding halt with her next request, spoken in that same tone that offered no room for refusal.

"Miss Nikos. Would you care to explain this to me?"

Pyrrha stared down at the slightly-crumpled stationary, temporarily frozen. She was many things, but a betrayer of secrets was not one of them. Unfortunately, she was not a liar either. That left only one option. Resolute and brimming with determination, she lifted her eyes from the letter to meet Glynda's questioning gaze. "I... I would not. I'm sorry."

The briefest flicker of surprise passed across Glynda's face at her star student's outright defiance, but her features quickly shifted back into an especially stern expression. "Even with your classmates at risk?"

Pyrrha froze. At _risk?_ A shiver crept down her spine at her professor's grave tone. What did she mean? Were there more than simple paparazzi at stake? Did Beacon have a policy forbidding teammate relations?

Red hair swished as Pyrrha stood suddenly, alarmed by the prospect of Ruby and Weiss suffering punishment simply for loving each other. "Professor - please - they aren't doing anything wrong!"

A light _chirrup _cut through the tension in the room.

Glynda pulled her scroll out, the screen's light illuminating her darkened expression - it was a message from Miss Schnee. She quickly scanned the message on the screen, eyes narrowing with each word. Putting her scroll away again, Glynda addressed Pyrrha as she turned to leave.

"Very well. Just remember, the staff is here to help. Please come to us with any... troubles." Her words seemed to relax her anxious student.

She paused at the classroom door. "Thank you for your time, Miss Nikos." With that, she left Pyrrha in the empty room, destination set for team RWBY's dorm.


	8. Welcome to Seriousville

**A/N: ****Shout out to our reviewers from last chapter, Darkrai, Chaosrin, and Celestesky598! You guys totally made our days- it's awesome getting to hear what your favorite parts are. (Blake and Weiss really do need to make up, don't they? Yes? Yes.) **

**Also, for all of you folks wishing for side effects or for things to get worse... your wishes may or may not be about to come true. Hang on to your hats.  
><strong>

**- Fiercesomest**

* * *

><p>Early evening. The time when most students upgraded from casually putting off work to honest-to-goodness procrastination, and when Team RWBY generally dissolved into chaos. That seemed to be the theme the past couple of nights, anyway.<p>

Yang moved to her newly designated area in the center of the dorm room, too busy experimenting with breathing out puffs of smoke to mind Weiss's demanding tone as the heiress shoved the petal-shedding Ruby back onto the mattress. The brawler twisted her face every which way, trying to make new shapes in the grayish clouds she produced. Even if it was weird, it was kind of neat!

"Hey Ruby look at this!" Yang successfully blew out a couple of smoke rings. "Sweet! Hahaha!" Lost in jovial laughter, she inhaled an errant rose petal floating through the air. A hideous gagging noise followed shortly thereafter as Yang erupted into a coughing fit, white hot jets of fire spewing from her mouth and nose with each convulsion.

Just then, the door to the hallway clicked and swung open. Still standing in the hall, Professor Goodwitch narrowly dodged a stream of flames unwittingly aimed directly at her feet by her student currently doubled over and hacking her lungs up with a fiery vengeance. Literally. She raised an eyebrow. Apparently the brawler had somehow made her own way back to her dorm.

Mortified at having nearly singed a professor, Yang found the presence of mind to cover her mouth as she coughed, but flames spilled through her fingers anyway.

Glynda stepped inside without a moment's hesitation, giving Yang a cursory once-over before retreating from the human fire hazard and heading straight for Ruby. She leaned over to examine the young team leader, angling her head to address Weiss. "How long have they been like this?"

Weiss straightened, clutching her singed jacket sleeve and severely regretting not getting a wet towel herself. Hadn't she sent Blake to do it _minutes_ ago? What was taking her so long?! Weiss kept an eye on Yang while she coughed fire, "Professor, it started around the time I messaged you. What's wrong with them?"

Ruby had leaned back as Glynda leaned in and had ended up toppling over into a veritable petal pile. "Uh, hi Professor Goodwitch, by the way."

Glynda ignored the greeting as she crouched down and gently took Ruby's face in her hands, turning the girl's head from side to side and scrutinizing each and every petal that fell, summoned by even the slightest movement. Fascinating. She wrapped an arm around the young girl's middle and rose to her feet, bringing Ruby up to her feet as well.

"That remains to be determined," she answered with a glance at Weiss as she pulled out her scroll to send a brief message to Ozpin.

_Antitoxin Report - semblances compromised. Cause unknown. Investigating further._

Blake finally appeared in the doorway to the bathroom clutching two damp towels just in time to see Glynda put her scroll away and take out her riding crop. Feeling her exposed Faunus ears more than ever, she ducked right back into the bathroom without a word.

Fortunately, Glynda's attention was focused elsewhere. With a minimal flick of her wrist, two of the room's desk chairs came to life, flying over to sweep Ruby and Yang off their feet, carting them right out the door. Glynda followed her floating charges, pausing at the doorway to let her gaze linger on Weiss.

"Nooo," Yang's cough-worn voice carried from the hallway, pulling Glynda's eyes away momentarily. "Not - _hack_ - not the infirmary!"

Glynda arched an eyebrow. "Oh, we're not going to the infirmary," she said with the barest hint of foreboding before returning her gaze to Weiss. "We'll be keeping these two for the night. Have a good evening, Miss Schnee." With a curt nod, she turned and shut the door behind her.

Weiss stayed quiet and formal under Glynda's severe gaze and didn't even have a chance to ask where she was taking her teammates before the door closed and they were gone. What had that last look meant? Was their condition serious? Well, obviously it was bad if Professor Goodwitch had to take them so quickly. And where were they being taken, if not to the infirmary?

Maybe the ER?

Hearing the front door shut, Blake slowly emerged from behind the bathroom door, casting a bewildered glance at Weiss.

The heiress remained frozen to the spot, her mouth going dry. Yang _had _been breathing fire. That... was a significant problem. Maybe it was nothing more than a very well founded concern for the dorm building and its occupants. Maybe Professor Goodwitch was taking them to the basement level, where everything was made of concrete.

Weiss shook her head, clearing her thoughts. There was no sense worrying. Surely the professor knew what she was doing. She took a deep breath, brushing bits of ash off her jacket, "Well, I guess they'll be fine."

"I hope so," Blake added after a pause, too occupied with worry for her teammates at the moment to be concerned about being left alone with the one person she was currently in the middle of a dispute with. Something didn't sit right with her. Brows furrowed, she looked to Weiss. "Why was Professor Goodwitch here?"

"Did you miss the part where flames shot across the room from Yang's _mouth?_" Weiss fired off the sarcastic remark before remembering that she was trying to not screw up her team's dynamics any more than she already had. Which... might be a difficult task. The heiress cut her eyes to Blake, "While they're gone, I think we should work this out."

Blake frowned in indignation at Weiss's initial sass, but found her ears perking at the surprisingly direct request for reconciliation that followed. She tightened her grip on the towels in her hands. Only Weiss could look so harsh while clearly trying so hard to be civil. Still... if she was willing to give it a shot...

"Yes." Taking a second to hang the damp towels on the bathroom door to free her hands, Blake moved to sit cross-legged at the head of her bed. She took a deep breath, and patted the spot beside her. "...Come sit with me?"

Weiss moved to the corner of Blake's bunk and stopped.

This sort of thing was somewhat foreign to the heiress, as was the desire to spend any more time sharing a bed with her teammate than was absolutely necessary. 'Absolutely necessary' in all cases amounting to precisely zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds- a limit which had already been exceeded this morning. Her ears burned just thinking about it and if ever there was a time she cursed her pale complexion, it was now. "We can talk fine from here."

Blake leaned back against the headboard, slightly put out by the indirect refusal of her metaphorical olive branch. Still, the dull ache behind her covered eye was starting to build again, so the last thing she wanted was another heated not-quite-shouting match. Thus, in the hopes of picking up visual cues, she carefully studied Weiss's expressions.

The heiress was nervous, that much was clear, but the blush creeping up the other girl's neck caught her off guard. Head tilting slightly as though a different angle would somehow make the sight easier to understand, Blake scrutinized Weiss's profile. Snow white eyebrows drawn together just slightly, ice blue eyes narrowed, lips pressed together in a thin line, jaw set. Blake's own brows furrowed. Was this anger... or something else?

As she thoroughly studied her teammate, the slightest swish of Weiss's ponytail sparked an unbidden memory. Warm arms around her... white hair covering her face... Blake suddenly remembered exactly where she'd woken up at the start of the day. A mortified blush of her own raced up her neck, matched only by the speed of the thoughts racing through her mind.

She still had no idea how she ended up in Weiss's bed the night before, but now she knew for a fact that she'd been out of her mind on pain medication... What else happened after that video that she didn't remember? _What _had she done to Weiss to make her not even want to _sit next to her?_

Realizing she was outright staring at this point, Blake crossed her arms and looked away as well.

"Right, of course," she somehow managed to avoid stammering as her mind sprinted to change the subject. "I... your scroll - I really will replace it."

"That's fine. I'm still a little upset that you broke it like that, but I think I understand," Weiss would have done basically the same thing if someone had taken an embarrassing video of her. Though she might have asked for it to be deleted first. Once. After that warning, all bets were off. She nudged a pile of rose petals on the floor with her boot and crossed her arms, businesslike, "I want to know what I should do if something like last night happens again."

"Avoiding racially-charged threats would be a good start," Blake muttered darkly before she could stop herself. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. It wouldn't do any good to put Weiss on the defensive.

"I don't actually... I don't know," Blake finally admitted with a sigh. The sheets beneath her rustled quietly as Blake brought her knees to her chest. "It's never happened to me before." She closed her eyes, ears flattening as she added, "I'm sorry you had to see me like that."

"Stop right there," Weiss held up a hand, giving Blake a sharp look, "We're teammates, right? And that means that sooner or later we're probably going to see each other at our worst. Maybe that was yours- maybe it wasn't. That doesn't make you sub-human, or whatever else you said, so don't apologize for it."

After a moment, Weiss tilted her chin and darted her eyes away, "... you _may _apologize for knocking me down and getting in bed with me in your delirium, however."

Blake's eyes widened bit by bit as the heiress spoke, emotions flickering by in rapid succession before settling on a mixture of relief and embarrassment. Hearing honest words of encouragement from the usually-icy heiress, no matter how stiff, dispelled the majority of her tension.

Not to mention, Weiss was hardly one for understatements, so if the only thing she wanted an apology for was sneaking into bed with her, then nothing else must have happened. Still mortifying, but bearable.

For the first time in what felt like ages, Blake felt a genuine smile tug at the edge of her mouth. Weiss never failed to sound autocratic during more serious discussions, but it was especially apparent when the heiress made requests. She really had taken a few hard hits though, from what the video showed.

In an effort to humor her, Blake held her head high, adopting a stoic visage. "I apologize for my inappropriate behavior," she stated formally. Her expression then melted into a tentative smile, ears perking the slightest bit. "Does this mean I get an apology for your... poorly chosen threats?"

"Apology accepted," the heiress acknowledged the gesture with a regal nod of her head, followed closely by a frown, "And my threats were expertly chosen, thank you very much. Though they were... insensitive."

Blake's smile faltered. So much for her earlier observation. Insensitive? "That's... an understatement," she said wryly, the irony not lost on her. She shifted slightly to look out the window, eyes distant.

"You know, I've heard enough threats like that to last me a lifetime. Usually from people who would rather see Faunus like me in a zoo, or simply _dead._" Slowly, her gaze drifted back, locking onto Weiss. "I'd rather not have to hear things like that from... someone I consider a friend."

Weiss's eyes flickered away from Blake. Wanting Faunus in the zoo. Hadn't she felt that way about the White Fang, more or less? The more of them behind bars, the better.

This was about her teammate, though, and Weiss might not be completely sure about the Faunus in general, but she did trust Blake, so long as she wasn't on heavy pain medication. And Blake... considered her a friend.

Well. That probably didn't say a lot about her judgment, but still. Weiss straightened her jacket, brushing her ponytail back over her shoulder, "Next time anyone says anything like that to you, just tell me."

Blake raised an eyebrow. "Even if it's you?"

"It won't be," Weiss's words were ice and steel. She turned, striding through the rose petals still littering the floor, "I'm going to sweep these up before they start to decompose."

Blake's eye tracked the heiress as she moved, expression thoughtful. Weiss's declaration wasn't exactly the apology she'd been hoping for, but it was a promise nonetheless - one that lifted her spirits, despite how severely it was delivered.

An abrupt pang of hunger brought her back to the present. Right - eating was probably a good idea. Blake stood, wincing only slightly at the spike in pain behind her eye caused by the sudden movement. Undeterred, she made her way to the sandwiches on her desk, taking care to avoid scattering the petals on the floor more than they already were.

She picked up one of the tuna sandwiches, staring at it for a moment before turning to look at Weiss with a genuine smile. Holding up the sandwich, she called to Weiss, "You remembered my favorite." She added with a smirk, "Or were these a fluke as well?"

Weiss had forgotten the sandwiches.

"They were out of peanut butter," she lied blatantly. Heat crept up the back of her neck. Beacon's cafeteria never ran out of peanut butter. That would be tantamount to the ocean running out of water. She gripped the broom she'd retrieved from the bathroom and focused very hard on chasing the petals into piles on the floor, "I mean, I just felt like it. You're not the only one who likes tuna, you know. "

Blake rolled her eyes. "Right," she said lightly, sporting a knowing smile as she passed by Weiss to sit back down on her bed. Letting the matter drop, she eyed her sandwich for a moment before diving straight in. Everything tasted ten times as delicious when hunger was in effect.

Hopefully she would be able to keep it down. Blake held fast to the sandwich to keep from dropping it as she shivered slightly from a wave of nausea rippling through her. Much to her dismay, the pain behind her eye had been slowly building since morning, and it was only getting worse. Still, she soldiered on until the sandwich disappeared. _Nothing _could keep her from tuna.

While Blake ate, Weiss swept up the remnants of Ruby's semblance and used a dust pan to dump the petals out the window. (The trash can was too small to hold them, plus throwing her partner's semblance in the trash felt somewhat wrong.) She cleaned up the candy wrappers around Ruby's desk, straightened her own belongings, packed the case of antitoxin, which she supposed someone on the medical staff would be coming to pick up, and mopped up the puddle covering most of the bathroom floor.

When her bout of compulsive cleaning was over, Weiss put away the cleaning supplies, chunked the sodden mop into a bucket, and leaned on the sink for a second. This was the first time in almost forty-eight hours when she hadn't needed to worry about Yang catching the room on fire, or Ruby hurting herself.

Well, she could still be concerned about those things, but since the sisters weren't here, there wasn't a lot she could actually do, and that was what counted. Also, she was tired. Extraordinarily tired. The sun dipped low in the sky, and all she wanted was to pull the curtain shut and curl up in bed and sleep for the next several days.

Unfortunately, the curtain was still ripped and when she crossed the room and sat down heavily on her mattress, she realized she'd forgotten to put the laundry in the dryer. Dust. That meant dragging herself to the laundry room, plus an hour of waiting for things to dry. She put her head in her hands.

From across the room, amber eyes tracked the heiress as she worked. Blake had seen Weiss go on these cleaning sprees once or twice before, usually when she was stressed over something. Normally Ruby would be around to jump in and try to help, which more often than not resulted in making even more of a mess, while Yang would discreetly toss things on the floor with a wink and a smile. Without the sisters around though, she had only just finished her sandwich by the time Weiss stopped.

Blake spared a glance at the door to the hall, eyes narrowing. Silence dominated the usually lively dorm room, tainted by the uncertainty of their partners' well-being and whereabouts. Her gaze returned to the other girl in the room with a sigh. Weiss may have covered her face, but her posture screamed fatigue. "Weiss," Blake leaned forward, expression as soft as her tone, "you should get some rest."

The heiress sighed without looking up, "My sheets are in the laundry."

"Oh." Blake's eyes darted to the floor and back. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Weiss's stomach decided to answer for her. She dropped her hands at once, mortified. When had she last eaten? _What _had she last eaten? A couple of pancakes? An apple the day before? She looked out the window at the darkening sky to avoid looking at Blake, "I'll just... maybe eat and put things in the dryer."

Stubborn as always. The corners of Blake's mouth twitched at the indirect refusal, torn between stretching into an exasperated frown, or lifting into an amused smirk. If Weiss wouldn't accept an offer for help, she would just _help_. Blake stood slowly, deliberately, pushing back the pain in her head that flared up as she moved to her food-laden desk. With silent swiftness, she brought the plate of sandwiches to Weiss. "Definitely eat something," she said, leaning forward to press the plate into the heiress's hands before stepping back and crossing her arms. "I think I can handle dryer duty."

There were two sandwiches on the plate in Weiss's hands. She'd made them all tuna for the sake of convenience.

"Fine," the heiress agreed, taking one and offering the dish back to Blake with one hand, "but take the other one. You need the energy if your aura's going to function properly. I know you haven't been taking your medication." Her expression got caught between anger and embarrassment, "Plus I really don't like tuna."

Blake took the proffered plate, frowning slightly at Weiss's ever-astute observations, before slipping into a subdued smile. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, not moving from her position. She looked everywhere but the heiress, seemingly at a loss for words. "Um... my bow..."

"Oh," Weiss drew the long, black ribbon from her jacket pocket. She looked at it for a moment.

If Ruby were here, she would probably say something nice about Blake being part of the team no matter what and she should just be herself and not hide. But she wasn't, and Weiss didn't buy into all of that sentimental nonsense. In fact, she deemed Blake's choice to conceal her heritage to be incredibly practical.

Still. With Ruby out of commission, Weiss felt like she should at least say something...

... then again, she was worn out and knowing her luck whatever she said would wind up starting another argument. So Weiss just handed the strip of black ribbon over, scowling.

Wordlessly, Blake took the ribbon and temporarily set the plate down as she re-tied her bow, years of practice evident in the speed and ease of her movements. Calmed somewhat by the ritualistic action, she grabbed the plate once more and moved across the room, pausing with her hand on the door to look back at Weiss, who was still sporting her signature scowl. "Weiss," she called, hoping to catch the heiress's attention, "... thank you." With that, she left.

In the now deserted room, Weiss fetched a plate and silverware from her stash in Ruby's bag and ensconced herself at her desk to eat.

The cup of soup had gone cold by now, but she drank half of it anyway and poured the rest down the sink. It would be a while before Blake was back with the laundry, and she needed a way to stay occupied for a little while lest she fall asleep on her naked mattress. Reading was out- she had a fatigue headache the size of an Ursa Major- so menial tasks were the order of the day. Hm... she looked around the room, her gaze settling on the remains of the red curtain hung across the window.

Weiss climbed up on the bookshelf to take the ripped fabric down and got out some pins and a needle and thread. The sloppy fix her partner had done before had been driving her crazy anyway.

She pinned the two halves of the curtain and set up shop at her desk (her universal workspace) with the light angled across the red material. Giving it a proper stitching job would certainly help her stay awake while she waited for her sheets to dry. The heiress settled into the easy, practiced rhythm of her work.

... fifteen minutes later, she was dead to the world, her arms folded on the desk, head down. Her needle dangled from its thread off the edge of her lap, fallen from her fingertips. Her reading lamp shone, the warm gold light catching in the spill of her white hair over the bundle of fabric.

* * *

><p>The trip to the laundry room felt like an eternity, each step leaden with the heavy discomfort weighing down Blake's head. Halfway there she realized she'd forgotten to ask which machines even contained their laundry. Well, she would figure it out... hopefully.<p>

She found the place deserted, thankfully, and walked all the way to the farthest side of the room to set her plate down on the washer next to the wall with a window. Turning around and giving the row of machines a quick once-over, she began the arduous task of searching each washer.

Luck was on her side, and the second washer she opened contained Ruby's telltale red sheets. Assuming the sheets in the washer next to them were Weiss's, she placed both piles into separate dryers and started them up.

Blake watched the fabric tumble and spin for a moment before returning to the far side of the room and hopping up to sit on the washer that held her sandwich plate. Quickly fading remains of angled daylight poured in from the window, lighting the floor and the row of dryers before her, but obscuring her sitting place in darkness - not that she minded.

Taking a moment to enjoy the solitude, Blake leaned on the wall and stared out the window at the horizon. When she eventually tired of the view, her eyes drifted around the laundry room before finally coming to rest on the tuna sandwich beside her. She smiled again as she thought back on Weiss's small admission. _I really don't like tuna... _

The simple ordinary food item sitting on that plate had taken on a new importance, now bearing the distinction of being tangible proof that underneath all the stiff regal bluster, Weiss Schnee cared. Blake's smile curved into a smirk. She was starting to understand what Ruby might see in her icy heiress.

Voices from outside the laundry room interrupted Blake's thoughts. She turned her head as the door opened and two familiar students walked in. Her night vision cut right through the relative darkness of the room to recognize Nora and Jaune in the middle of a conversation about... something.

Blake strained her ears to hear over the din of two dryers, but could only make out useless snippets. Not wanting to butt in, she simply sat and watched from the shadows as they came closer.

"... so the entire field of sunflowers broke into song~!" Nora flung her arms wide, skipping into the middle of the laundry room. "They must have been speaking flower-speak because I didn't understand any of the words, but it might have been about ice cream."

"Why would flowers sing about ice cream? They can't even eat it," Jaune fumbled along the wall for the light switch. It had been a long day. Classes, combat practice, Pyrrha had never shown up for dinner. When he got back to the room, she'd been fretting over some letter she tried to write to Weiss, probably about the whole thing with Ruby. Jaune had no idea. He figured it was best to stick to his play-dumb routine and just go with Nora to get the laundry. He'd ditched his uniform's coat and tie but hadn't had time to change out of the shirt before his teammate had dragged him off.

Nora scoffed at him, "Of course flowers can eat ice cream. You just have to melt it so they can suck it up with their roots. One time, I fed this dandelion vanilla ice cream for a week. It grew into, like, a super dandelion."

"What? No way. Really?" Jaune couldn't keep back a skeptical smile. "Was it huge or something?"

"It was actually kind of shrively," Nora leaned towards him in a dramatic stage whisper, "but only because it was filled with such crippling power." She added, "Like mothballs."

"... the crippling power of mothballs?"

"Have you ever tried eating a mothball? Crippling power."

"Aha!" Jaune exclaimed as his hand encountered the switch. The fluorescent lights flickered on overhead, bathing the laundry room in harsh white light. Jaune squinted while his eyes adjusted.

Nora spotted Blake at once, "Hey!" she gave the Faunus a short wave, "Were you hiding? Is it your turn to cry in the laundry room? That must be a pain with that bandage on your eye."

"Oh, hey, Blake, didn't see you there. And, Nora, she's not crying. Why would Blake be crying?" Jaune rolled his eyes, glancing at Blake and circling his finger near his temple in a good-natured signal indicating Nora's lack of sanity. Nora copied the gesture, pointing at Jaune. He laughed, "Look, she's just... uh... eating?"

Yeah, that was a little weird. But whatever.

After taking a moment to recover from the sudden blinding light forcing her pupil to constrict into barely a slit, Blake rubbed her eye and shifted against the wall, trying to appear nonchalant. "I see I'm not the only one doing laundry at strange hours." She tried to mentally catch up with Nora and Jaune's conversation, which had finally become clearer due to their close proximity. Flowers? Ice cream? _Moth balls?_

On second thought, she instead focused on the questions they had directed at her. Her gaze flickered between the two. "I wasn't hiding," she replied evenly, motioning pointedly to her amber eye, "I don't need light."

In an attempt to quickly move the conversation away from her Faunus heritage, and because she was genuinely curious, Blake continued with a questioning glance at Nora, "Who was crying in the laundry room?"

"It was Weiss~!" Nora sang out as if she were in some kind of laundry room opera, flinging Ren's sodden green coat out of the washer dramatically. She pulled back abruptly, placing a finger to her lips, "Actually, that was probably supposed to be a secret, so shh."

Blake blanched at the immediate and unfettered response, then paled as the melodically delivered name finally registered. "Weiss?..."

The coat flopped over Jaune's face. He pulled it off and stared at his teammate in open shock, "Wait. Weiss? As in Snow Angel? Ice Queen? Whatever-else-we-call-her? That Weiss?"

"Yep!" Nora chirped in complete disregard to her earlier suggestion to 'shh' while she plucked the rest of the laundry from the washer and carted it over to shove into a dryer on the far wall. "Let's dry it over here. I'm getting a good drying vibe from this one."

Blake crossed her arms, sharing in Jaune's initial disbelief. She admittedly knew very little about Nora, but the girl's tendency towards exaggeration was high on the relatively short list of things she _did _know. Weiss had probably scowled a little too hard, or made some other benign facial twitch that was now being blown out of proportion.

...So she hoped anyway. A scowl darkened Blake's features as a nagging sense of uncertainty refused to leave her. Weiss _had _taken an exceptionally long time to come back from "doing laundry" - an obvious excuse to flee what had been a... tense conversation. But crying?

Exaggeration usually required at least a grain of truth, and the unpleasant possibility that Nora _wasn't _exaggerating remained as well. Blake's eyes never left Nora, burning with a question that she feared she already knew the answer to. "Why was she crying?"

"I dunno. Probably because of the other super-secret thing we're not supposed to talk about," Nora shrugged, jamming the load of wet clothes into the dryer.

Blake's eyes narrowed, finding little reassurance in the non-answer. Well, whatever it might have been, Weiss seemed fine now, so she supposed there was no sense worrying over it.

Jaune paled, glancing at Blake when Nora mentioned 'the secret'. Ohhhh he was out of his depth here with these two. But no problem. He could be chill. He could avoid getting sucked into any talk about whatever was going on with Weiss and Ruby. (Talk that would undoubtedly get him killed sooner or later, however interesting it was.)

All he had to do was re-direct the conversation, which he did loudly, "So, Blake, I guess your eye's doing better, huh? At least it doesn't look like it's still bleeding, or anything, or... do eyes bleed even? Haha, yeah..." He held Ren's coat out to Nora helplessly, "Uh, does this just go in the dryer?"

Nora balled it up and tossed it in, "Sure, why not?"

Blake's hand subconsciously lifted to touch her eye patch at Jaune's remark. "Yes, actually, I've discovered eyes do bleed. Mine is... recovering nicely," she stated flatly, taking care to avoid any mention of the substantial pain still plaguing her covered eye.

She lapsed back into silence. At this point Blake would normally be content to drop out of any further conversation, but the sight of Ren's coat sparked a sudden curiosity in her. As far as she knew, he was taking the same antitoxin as Ruby and Yang, both of whom had developed bizarre side-effects and had just been mysteriously carted away to who-knows-where by their professor. She tilted her head, looking between her classmates as they struggled to figure out the basic steps of laundering clothes. "How is Ren doing?"

"Oh, uh, he's fine! Totally, one-hundred percent fine," Jaune fake-laughed for a second and gave Nora a thumbs-up while she figured out the dials on the machine. Then he leaned in close to Blake, "He's got some kind of a... kind of like a force-field thing happening. Something to do with his semblance. Pyrrha explained it. Anyway, someone on the medical staff came to check on him and couldn't get past it to take a blood sample."

Jaune rubbed the back of his neck, "I mean, he's hurting, what with the anti-toxin and not taking any pain meds and all, but he's got us three to look out for him and he's been doing fine before this... whatever it is. The doctors want to check it out, I think. I'm just the Nora-distraction squad while Pyrrha and the med staff try to get him to the special-cases ward.

"So I guess, um, stuff across the hall has been... interesting?" Jaune grimaced at his lame finish. He looked over his shoulder to check on Nora. She was riding the dryer, it seemed, standing on top of it and urging it towards greater feats of dryness. "Somehow I always think of you guys as the sane team."

Blake squinted. Sane was that very last word she'd use to describe team RWBY as of late. She leaned slightly away from Jaune out of a habitual need for personal space, rather than any sort of personal distaste. "Interesting is... one way of putting it, yes. Yang nearly setting me and everything else on fire was interesting. Ruby redecorating the room with endless rose petals was also interesting..." Her words tapered off as she lost herself in thought, considering the sudden influx of new information she'd been handed.

If Ren was having these same problems, then something was definitely wrong with the antitoxin Beacon's medical staff had provided. Either it just didn't work, or it made things worse. Neither possibility sat well with her. Blake's expression darkened further at the thought of Beacon's special-cases ward. Without books to read, her time in the infirmary had mainly been spent listening in on small talk and gossip from the medical staff, and the ward in question was almost never mentioned positively.

From what she'd been able to gather, that was where they housed cases with no clear-cut diagnosis, or, and her heart sank at the thought, cases with a low probability of recovery. She didn't want to think about it, but it was highly likely that if Ren was being taken there, then the special-cases ward was probably Professor Goodwitch's destination when she'd dashed off with Ruby and Yang earlier. Blake trained her hardened gaze on the tuna sandwich and let out a small sigh. Weiss was _not _going to be happy about this.

"Gee, sounds like it's been rough," Jaune's blue gaze dropped to the floor. His team had been able to pretty much go on as usual- no risk of burning down the dorms, and no high-stress romantic entanglements. (Anything that had to do with Weiss Schnee was pretty much guaranteed to be high-stress.)

Sure, Nora and Ren were childhood friends and all, but so far Ren's condition hadn't made too much of a dent in the hammer-wielder's happy-go-lucky demeanor. She hadn't been destructive or anything, at least. Well, not more so than usual. Jaune scuffed his boots on the concrete floor, "If there's anything we can do to help... I mean, we could watch your laundry, or something. We'll be here a while anyway."

Blake eyed Nora apprehensively for a moment - there was now a large dent in the dryer she was riding. "I think I'll stick around," she finally answered. She leaned against the wall once more and closed her eyes. "Thank you though."

* * *

><p>A cool night breeze blew through the nearly-empty dorm of team JNPR. Standing by the open window, Pyrrha tried to make sense of the whirlwind of events that had just occurred. She pulled out her scroll and began to write a message.<p>

_Jaune,_

_The medical staff is gone now. As is Ren. Also his bed. I'm worried - none of them seemed to have any inclination as to the cause for the sudden complication in Ren's condition. He did not seem well as he flew out the window. Though, that may have merely been due to the sudden nature of his departure. Professor Goodwitch was very expedient in using his bed to carry him away - not unlike a carriage, come to think of it. _

_What should we do about Nora?_

_- Pyrrha_

She hit send.

* * *

><p>Jaune snapped out of his doze- it was Nora's shift on 'guard duty' over the laundry. He dug his scroll out of his pocket and scanned Pyrrha's message. His response was brief:<p>

_No worries. I've got this._

_- J_

He closed his scroll, tilting his head back to look up at his teammate, who was currently perched, bright-eyed and vigilant, on top of the dryer. "Hey Nora, the, uh... the doctors wanted to take another look at Ren, so he's off seeing them."

Something flickered behind her eyes. "Yeah, he has been getting kind of worse."

"Oh," Jaune winced. He ran his hand over his hair, "You knew?"

"Well, duh, we're partners," Nora hopped off the top of the dryer with a little less enthusiasm than usual. She thumped the corner of the machine lightly with her fist, her smile absent.

Blake, who had been listening from her position against the wall up to this point, finally opened her eyes upon hearing the subtle shift in her classmate's tone. For a brief moment, the look on Nora's face made Blake want to say something encouraging, but that idea was quickly dispelled when she realized that she couldn't think of anything positive to say about the situation. Instead, she simply frowned in sympathy.

* * *

><p>Deep within the basement levels of Beacon, one solitary pane of polished glass reflected a pair of darkened green irises sharpened in concentration. The soft hum of machinery broken by intermittent blips of light and sound from the countless display screens around her did nothing to improve Glynda Goodwitch's already soured mood. She glanced up from the chart in her hands, filled with frustratingly inconclusive data, to look through the protective glass barriers at the ward rooms beyond.<p>

In the first room lay Ruby Rose, surrounded almost poetically in a cushion of her own rose petals, blissfully unaware of the handful of nurses flitting about her bed thanks to a heavy dose of sedatives to keep her from moving. In the second Lie Ren, bleary-eyed and visibly hurting, was still doing his best to answer the sporadic questions thrown at him by the engineer, medical technician, and aura expert who were currently locked in an energetic discussion on how to best monitor a patient through an aura-based barrier. Glynda's eyes narrowed into slits. At least he wasn't _on fire._

'Hellish inferno' was the only descriptor that seemed to fit what had become of Yang Xiao Long's ward room. Initially, the sisters had been roomed together at Yang's request, but the same sedatives that kept her younger sister immobile had done nothing to quell her own condition - she simply burned in her sleep, a relentless conflagration that grew with each passing minute. Once imminent containment failure became apparent, Ruby Rose had been evacuated to her present location.

Yang Xiao Long was now resting on the floor of a room devoid of anything but swirling flames, cushioned by a makeshift pile of dust-infused fireproof blankets brought in by a courageous medical staff member wearing full-bodied protective gear made of the same material. Everything else in the room had been incinerated.

A light beep and swish alerted Glynda to someone entering through the door behind her. She didn't need to turn around to know who it was. Ozpin always had a way of showing up whenever she felt she was nearing the end of her rope. Her eyes remained focused on her students as she spoke to the familiar figure that had come to stand beside her.

"The antitoxin is not working."

"So it seems," Ozpin watched the medical team work beyond the glass, both hands resting on his cane.

He and Glynda made it a point to stay well acquainted with Beacon's medical staff. Ozpin had spent enough time in the infirmary back before his appointment as headmaster for him to more than appreciate the value of the doctors and specialists he had on hand to patch up the gashes and broken bones that came along with training to be a huntsman/huntress.

Ozpin allowed his attention to stray across the screens monitoring the trio of students in the adjacent rooms. This was somewhat more serious than broken bones.

Of course, they would make adjustments. Alter certain chemicals, analyze the effects on the toxin in the students' blood; however, this was not the sort of poison you simply found the right antidote for. Dire complications were to be expected when anything of Grimm origins came into play, and Grimm toxin was no exception.

Even with the right formulation, there were often... difficulties. Ozpin's expression remained grave as he turned to the door, "I believe it's time to inform their partners. Have them gather in the waiting room upstairs."

Glynda watched him leave the room. Mouth set in a thin line, she set the chart down and pulled out her scroll, fingers hesitating over the message function as she deliberated on how exactly she would phrase this unusual order.

* * *

><p>An uneasy silence had fallen over the laundry room. Blake glanced between Nora and Jaune, both seemingly at a loss for words. Shifting restlessly, her fingers brushed against the empty plate beside her - she'd soldiered through her sandwich a little earlier, an arduous undertaking with the pressure in her head, but she felt better for it. Her head was even starting to clear a bit.<p>

_BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZRRT_

Well so much for that. It took all of Blake's conscious willpower to keep from flattening her ears at the sudden unholy cacophony that blared from both of her machines in tandem, signaling the dryer cycle's end. With a quick shake of her head to dispel the ringing in her ears, Blake hopped down from her washing machine, taking care to avoid stepping on Jaune and giving the tense blonde a passing glance as she headed over to pull the sheets from her dryers.

After a quick inspection - everything was indeed warm and dry - she paused, suddenly inspired by Ruby's signature red sheets. One amber eye drifted sideways to rest on the uncharacteristically silent girl standing just a few machines away. "If your partner's gone to the special-cases ward, he at least has good company. Ruby and Yang are there too." ...So she assumed, anyway.

Nora looked up and levered herself so she was sitting on top of her dryer. She grinned, "Sounds like we're missing the party then, huh? Or at least half of it. Geez, they must be bored without our half. Do you think they allow balloons in the special cases ward? They weren't crazy about them in the regular infirmary, but psssh, balloons are an important part of recoveries everywhere."

Jaune half-smiled up at Blake from his seat on the floor against the dryer. It was good to have Nora chattering again, but not good to hear that half of Team RWBY was in as bad shape as Ren. At least he wasn't alone down there, though, wherever the special cases ward was.

"They can't be too bad off, right? We already all made it through the whole Grimm rat thing," he plucked at the edge of his own jacket sleeve, forcing memories that made the hair on the back of his neck prickle up- teeth and black fur and Pyrrha's spear drenched in red ichor- back into his subconscious. "They'll probably be alright, I mean."

Blake kept her thoughts to herself. It was one thing to stay positive, but it was another to spread false hope. Instead, she gathered the sheets in one arm and offered her classmates a half-smile. "I should go. I'll see you later." With a small wave, she left the laundry room.

* * *

><p>Back in Team JNPR's room, somewhere in the bottom of a dresser drawer, Nora's scroll blipped.<p>

_New message._

Pyrrha paused and looked up at the small sound. She cast a quick glance over at her own scroll lying on her pillow. Nothing. Brows furrowing slightly, she shrugged and went back to pacing.

* * *

><p>Ruby had programmed her scroll to play the sound of one of her favorite, premium-quality dust-core sniper rifle rounds being chambered in Crescent Rose whenever she got a message. (She only bought them every once in a long while because they were so expensive but they were completely worth it every time. It took a lot of recording and re-recording to get the sound just right.)<p>

_Click. _

The heavy, meaningful sound that so often preceded a Grimm's head getting chunks blown out of it played from Weiss Schnee's jacket pocket. She stirred in her sleep, turning to bury her face in her arms atop the bunched-up curtain, but she didn't wake.

* * *

><p>The trip back to the dorms felt like no time at all, and soon enough Blake found herself at the door, pushing it open with her free hand. "I'm ba-" she froze mid-sentence as she spotted Weiss, curled up on the ripped curtain draped over her desk, sound asleep. She stared at the rare sight, amused at seeing the proper heiress in such a decidedly improper sleeping position. Nevertheless, she was glad that Weiss had taken her advice to rest.<p>

Stepping lightly so as not to disturb her teammate's long-overdue nap, Blake quietly shut the door behind her, moved over to the beds, and set to work putting the sheets back in place. Well, Weiss's sheets at least, she just sort of tossed Ruby's sheets up onto the bed hanging above. She wasn't about to risk re-injury climbing up there. Then again, apparently she could jump up there no problem when she was hopped up on pain medication. Blake's eye twitched. Never again.

With the bed properly made, Blake turned to observe her new dilemma - Weiss. She couldn't very well let the heiress spend her night hunched over on a desk, but she wasn't too keen on the idea of waking her either. Slowly, quietly, Blake approached Weiss, hesitating as she leaned over to examine her sleeping teammate. She had to admit, the heiress actually looked quite peaceful when she slept - almost sweet, even. It was hard to imagine Weiss's signature icy glares coming from the face before her now.

A small flashing light caught the corner of Blake's eye. She glanced down at Weiss's pocket to see Ruby's scroll, blinking to signal an unread message. Well, so much for letting her sleep.

"Weiss," Blake reached out to place a hand on the heiress's shoulder, but stopped herself short of actually touching. "_Weiss,_" she tried again, a little louder. The heiress slept on, dead to the world. Setting her teeth and bracing for the worst, Blake finally reached those last few inches to grasp Weiss's shoulder, giving her a gentle shake. "Weiss, wake up. You have a message."

The heiress shoved blindly at Blake, her words a low groan, "Fine, stop touching me."

Blake immediately stepped back, barely avoiding a hand to the face in the process.

Weiss dragged herself out of sleep and sat up, disoriented. This wasn't her bed. She blinked blearily down at her hands. Why was she still in her school jacket? Her eyes skated over her unfinished sewing project. Not even two feet down the split. It was dark outside. "What time is it?"

Blake glanced at Ruby's alarm. "It's almost nine."

Weiss ran a hand over her face. Nine o'clock. The laundry must be dry. In fact, it looked like Blake had gone ahead and made her bed. Well, mostly. At least she had sheets. That was good enough. She got up, shedding her jacket on her way to the bathroom and grumbling, "I'm going to bed."

"But you have a-" the door to the bathroom shut before Blake could finish her sentence. She rolled her eyes, eventually letting her gaze fall back to Weiss's jacket draped over the chair. Ruby's scroll was still flashing. Stifling a sigh, Blake took the scroll, eyeing the small device with trepidation.

Who would be messaging Ruby this late anyway? It would be rude to read someone else's messages, but if it ended up being important, with Ruby out of commission there was no telling when it might get answered. Might as well respond to tell the sender as much.

Satisfied with her reasoning, Blake ignored the nurses' advice to avoid reading for the time being and pulled the scroll open to look at the new message. A shock of adrenaline ran through her upon seeing the small icon of the sender: Professor Goodwitch. She immediately opened the message.

_Remaining members of team RWBY and JNPR report to the waiting room above the Special-cases ward at once._

Dread pooled in her gut as she reread the terse message twice more, fingers tightening further and further around the edges of the scroll each time she hit the words _remaining members_. The message came with an attached image—a map of the school's basement levels from the looks of it—but she pulled her eyes from the screen, forcing herself not to jump to conclusions. Slowly, her gaze lifted to the bathroom door. Weiss was _definitely _not going to be happy about this.

That was probably an understatement. Weiss had already taken down her hair and was in the process of unbuttoning her school shirt when she emerged in belated search of her nightgown.

She noticed Blake's stillness more than anything else. Like she wasn't even breathing. Weiss replaced her nightgown and started redoing the buttons on her shirt. "What's the matter?"

Blake's eyes cut to Weiss, widening slightly in anticipation as amber locked with questioning blue. Temporarily at a loss for words, she loosened her grip on the scroll and simply handed it over.

Weiss took the device and stared at the message for a second. Her mouth settled into a thin line as she handed it back. She snatched up her jacket and a hair tie from her desk, "Let's go."

Blake nodded, pulling up the map as she followed Weiss out the door.

* * *

><p>Within a quarter of an hour, the two stood in the waiting room of Beacon's infirmary. The walls were a sea green color that went out of fashion years ago; the tiles polished to a shine that didn't quite hide the marks of traffic from the door to the reception desk. Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzzed softly.<p>

Weiss glowered impatiently. Her white hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she was tired, and worried, and was most certainly not in the mood to wait around.

The door behind to the hallway opened, admitting three-quarters of Team JNPR.

"You guys get the message too?" Jaune entered first, offering the two RWBY members a half-hearted grin as he held the door for his teammates. It faded quickly. He'd noticed the message on his scroll sometime after Blake had left and had gone to make sure Pyrrha had gotten one as well.

Nora was more subdued than usual. Most of her boundless energy seemed to have been converted into a more nervous sort. She fiddled with the cuffs of her sleeves, darting glances at the empty receptionist's desk and the analog clock hung over the door.

Pyrrha entered the room last, looking distressed, but still the most composed by far. She stopped to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nora, or at least, as close as she could get considering their height difference.

Blake fought to keep her ears from flattening in anxiety as she watched the door that led into the infirmary, so caught up in wondering what had become of her teammates that she completely missed Jaune's remark. She stood a little straighter when she heard footsteps coming from beyond the door.

Shortly, it opened. Glynda stepped through, followed closely by Ozpin. The first professor's piercing green eyes swept over the frazzled group. "Good, you are all here." Glynda stepped to the side, glancing at Ozpin.

The headmaster stood, surveying the members of the fractured teams a moment before drawing up a chair and taking a seat. He set his cane against the desk behind him.

"Please," he indicated the assortment of marginally upholstered waiting room chairs, plus a worn-out flower patterned couch.

The invitation to sit did not brook refusal, so the students shuffled to arrange themselves, Jaune and Pyrrha and Nora all fitting on the couch while Blake and Weiss took chairs near the door into the infirmary.

Ozpin leaned forward on his elbows, gathering his students' attention close. He could see the tired lines in some of their faces, the uncertainty, perhaps a bit of masked fear. That was appropriate, given the situation. He removed his small, dark spectacles. Rubbed his eyes. Replaced his glasses.

"Your teammates are dying," he said.


	9. Desperate Measures

**AN: So... this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better... aahahhAhahAHhah, but we love you guys! Just hang in there!**

**Hugs,**  
><strong>Defenestrator<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Your teammates are dying.<em>

The headmaster's words hung in the air like a miasma, filling the cramped room with a heavy silence. The only movement came from Pyrrha as she wrapped an arm around Nora, somehow managing to keep the shake out of her voice as she spoke. "But professor, they seemed to be improving these past couple of days."

Ozpin raised his eyebrow almost imperceptibly, allowing his students a moment to recall the hole in Lie Ren's chest. "I'm afraid the situation has... developed, somewhat. Until this evening, we had every reason to believe that the Grimm rat toxin's effects were merely physical; however, it appears that we were mistaken."

The knob for the door to the hall rattled and turned; the oak paneled door swung inwards, admitting Professor Oobleck. His green hair stood on end. He wore a half-buttoned collared shirt over what appeared to be a set of more casual clothes, and his glasses shone white in the fluorescent light as he zipped into the room, sipping from a paper cup as he did so. "Ah, everyone's here. Ozpin, Glynda," he greeted the two of them.

"Bartholemew," Ozpin nodded to him, not bothering to offer him a seat. He would stand regardless. "I trust your research has gone well?"

"Yes, well, it is what it is," Professor Oobleck shook his head, "Terrible thing, this. Just terrible. Not many well-documented cases, I'm afraid."

Sometime during this exchange, Jaune raised his hand with a question.

Professor Goodwitch's eyes drifted up from the chart in her hands she'd been studying since Ozpin began talking. "Yes, Mr. Arc?"

"I was just wondering, sir, er, ma'am. Uh," Jaune looked at Professor Oobleck, "are you a doctor?"

"..." Oobleck took another sip of his drink. "Mr. Arc, I trust you are aware that there is more than one type of 'doctor'."

"Bartholemew has made a hobby of studying the more... traditional methods of medical practice," Ozpin clarified, his words grave.

"Complete quackery, most of it. However, there are a few techniques here and there, a number of particularly fascinating applications of dust-tipped needles..." Oobleck cleared his throat. "But allow me to start at the beginning. You may or may not be aware that there is no known cure for Grimm rat poisoning."

This time Weiss's hand shot up. Without waiting to be called on, she asked, "What about the antitoxin?"

"Highly sophisticated, but ultimately experimental," Ozpin informed her. "Bartholemew, if you would care to explain?"

"Yes, well," Oobleck said, "The toxins Grimm rats secrete vary from nest to nest, and in the past we have not had the technology available that allows us to analyze and formulate anti-toxins based on individual cases. At least many had assumed this was the case, as every attempt at developing an antitoxin was met with resounding failure. Naturally, this necessitated our becoming adept at avoiding the toxin altogether, hence the dire, albeit abbreviated, warnings included in your Grimm Studies texts. Despite their effectiveness, the rats' tails are not their preferred method of attack- that being the teeth and/or claws, for reasons unknown- and besides it really is quite unheard of these days to simply stumble upon a nest without warning, as you all did." He took another sip from his cup, "In fact, I believe the most recent case of Grimm rat poisoning occurred several decades before the Great War."

"Wow. Lucky us," Jaune grimaced.

"If you had been setting out to exterminate them, you would have of course been made fully aware of the dangers. However, it is simply so outlandishly uncommon... well, you get the idea. The crux of the problem has nothing to do with whether or not one is informed of the consequences of contact with the poison, however."

Here Professor Oobleck turned to the headmaster.

Ozpin looked very tired. "Mankind once believed that the rat toxin sought to destroy not only the body, but also the soul," he motioned to the stack of reports on Glynda's clipboard, "The tests our physicians have run seem to confirm this to be the case."

"Is that..." Blake's voice halted as she tried to put the pieces together. She gripped the edges of her chair in a futile effort to ground herself. "Is that why their semblances went out of control?"

"A person's semblance is tied directly to his or her aura," Oobleck smoothed his rumpled shirt with his free hand, "An attack on one- though I admit I am shaky on the details of how exactly you would attack someone's aura- will produce an effect in the other. In most instances, the toxin's physical effects are enough to kill the victim. We believed this to be the sole difficulty to overcome, and our very capable physicians have informed me that indeed the anti-toxin succeeded in that respect, indeed they were quite certain of a smooth recovery for your classmates." He took a swallow from his cup, "However, a closer look at records of Grimm rat encounters reveals that there are a few cases... antiquated, you understand. Hardly reliable... but in the few recorded cases where the victim's body has been of a constitution strong enough to withstand the physical effects..."

"The toxin apparently seeks to extinguish the soul," Ozpin provided the words for the scattered historian. "If the body survives, and only darkness remains? Well."

He didn't have to finish the explanation.

Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Lie Ren.

If they lost this fight, if their souls succumbed to the rats' poison, they would become like every other soulless being in Remnant.

They would become Grimm.

Jaune's mouth went dry. He looked at his teammates, at Weiss and Blake. Pyrrha's arm had tightened around Nora, who was listening intently, hanging on the professors' every word, more focused than he'd ever seen her. Weiss was still as a statue, ice blue eyes fixed on a point somewhere behind Ozpin's shoulder, while Blake seemed determined to crush her chair in a white knuckled grip. He swallowed, "So how do we fix it? I mean, if it's fighting their soul somehow, can we... you know... fight it back?"

"We're not sure," Ozpin said. A small chirrup sounded, and he drew his scroll from his pocket. His gaze flickered back up to his students, "There are several methods we have at our disposal. Professor Oobleck will inform you of the details." He rose stiffly. "If you'll excuse me."

Glynda held the door open for Ozpin, tracking his tired eyes with her own. With one last subdued glance at her students, she followed him out of the room, leaving Oobleck to handle the aftermath.

Blake stood suddenly, unable to keep still any longer. Shaking slightly, whether from anger or fear she wasn't sure, she clenched her fists and addressed the one remaining professor in the room. "Tell me what I have to do."

"First of all, please take your seats," this forestalled the others' moves to follow Blake in rising. "I understand that you all are under an astonishing amount of duress, but we must keep our heads about us if we're to do any good at all," Oobleck adjusted his glasses, stepping to the center of the room, "As far as what's to be done, I'm afraid the matter isn't particularly straightforward..."

* * *

><p>Weiss took a deep breath. The narrow white halls and flickering monitors only contributed to the claustrophobic feeling of being several floor levels below the school. The special cases wards were buried deep in the cliffs- for the patients' safety, or that of the other students', depending on the situation. In Yang's case, the latter was certainly true. In Ruby's... Weiss took another look through the glass panel in the door, her hand resting on the doorknob.<p>

Ruby lay very still among her rose petals, her head turned towards Ozpin, who stood at her bedside. They'd been speaking for several minutes.

Weiss stepped away from the door. She wrapped her arms around her middle. Her jacket was rumpled, and in her rush she'd just tied her hair back in a low ponytail. There was nothing for it, though. She tried to relax, but her fists clenched up as she watched her partner and the headmaster beyond the door.

Farther down the hall, Jaune and Pyrrha and Nora waited outside Ren's room. Well, Jaune and Pyrrha waited. Nora bounced.

"Ugh, what are they talking about?" She peered in through the window at Ren and Professor Port, who had arrived during Professor Oobleck's outlining of the plan. Her attention wandered to the screens displaying Ren's information, but one of the nurses urged her not to press the buttons on the monitors and the hyperactive girl went back to the window.

"Looks like it's pretty serious," Jaune cupped his hands around his eyes to better see through the glass. He drew back, swallowing, "Not that it wasn't serious before... really serious, I mean. And bad. You know what I mean. I... don't know if I even know how to do that thing the professor was talking about back there. With my aura, I mean," he shot Pyrrha a helpless look. They'd been working on his aura control for weeks, but he didn't feel like he'd improved much at all.

Pyrrha did her best to smile for Jaune. "I know what you mean." She caught a glimpse of Ren flashing a small smile to Nora through the window. "The ability to aid another's recovery through linking auras is something you learn fairly early on in aura studies. Though, normally the technique is used to speed the recovery process for physical wounds. This is the first time I've heard of using it to aid in the recovery of another aura itself." Pyrrha paused, brows furrowing. "Granted, this is the first I've heard of a toxin that attacks aura, so..." Her words trailed off as she glanced down to the very end of the hall at Blake and Professor Goodwitch.

Blake leaned against the door leading to the stairwell, eyes trained to the floor, doing her best not to listen to the conversation Professor Goodwitch was having with Yang through the door on the other side of the hall. Much to her dismay, due to her partner's uninhibited flames, they were having the conversation while standing on either side of the closed door, so it was impossible _not_ to hear snippets of their words going back and forth.

"If the worst... _that can't happen_... last resort... _don't hesitate_... collapse the room... _don't let Blake_..." Blake glanced up at hearing her name, briefly catching Yang's steely gaze through the window. There was something surreal about seeing her partner calmly holding a discussion while standing in the midst of a firestorm. She didn't get to hold the gaze for long as one of the medical staff approached her then, gently ushering her into an empty room to get properly equipped with a full-bodied fireproof suit.

Glynda entered the empty room a few minutes later, just as Blake was pulling on her gloves - the last pieces of the protective suit finally in place. "Miss Belladonna, are you ready to go?"

"Yes."

Glynda crossed her arms, fixing her student with a cautionary gaze. "Your partner's case is uniquely dangerous. I trust you understand the consequences of what you are being asked to do."

Blake glanced down at her own hands for only a moment before locking eyes with her professor, expression resolute. "I'll do whatever it takes."

Piercing green studied burning amber, silent and searching. Finally, Glynda nodded. "Very well then." She stood aside. "I'll be right outside the door if you need anything."

With a nod back at her professor, Blake left the room and made her way to the stalwart barrier of metal barely holding her partner's personal inferno at bay. Taking a deep breath, she cracked open the door just enough to slip inside, wincing at the streaks of fire that shot past her into the hall before she shut the door again.

* * *

><p>Waiting was agony. Weiss closed her eyes and attempted to focus on her breathing.<p>

How could this be happening? How had that idiot dolt even gotten herself poisoned in the first place? They hadn't exactly exchanged war stories after the fight. It had been a little too recent. It still was, she guessed. That same fear she'd felt in the dark, in the faint glow of her rapier's blade- that her partner, her friends were dead, that she was the only one left- gripped her chest.

She took another deep breath to try to dispel the feeling, but its icy fingers clutched at her, threatening to close around her heart.

The door to Ruby's room opened. Weiss drew herself up as Ozpin held the door for her, "Are you ready?"

"Yes, Professor," the heiress said, her eyes hard as she stepped into the room.

The space was cramped, the air warm and close. The persistent antiseptic smell of the infirmary fought with the subtle, pervasive scent of the rose petals strewn across the floor. Some had been crushed underfoot by the doctors and nurses who were now absent. The petals pooled on the examination table surrounding Ruby, thick as leaves, red as blood.

Ruby herself was awake. She grinned a weak grin, petals tumbling into existence when she turned her head. "Hey, Weiss."

"Hey, Ruby," Weiss stood at her bedside, her mouth suddenly dry. Her partner looked fine. A little flushed, maybe. A little drawn. She didn't look like her soul was being attacked. Like she might be turning into a Grimm. Weiss's manner fell into an awkward and stiff mix of her formal upbringing and her terrified concern for her partner, "... how do you feel?"

Ruby's grin vanished and her silver eyes dropped away from Weiss's, "I... um..." she shifted, pain crossing her features. "I..."

"No, don't answer that," Weiss hurried to say, berating herself for asking such a stupid question.

"It's alright. I just wish I could sit up or... or do something," Ruby fell silent, shutting her eyes and trying to breathe right. There was a heavy feeling on her, like something was slowly, surely crushing her ribcage, trying to squeeze the breath out of her.

Weiss glanced over her shoulder at Ozpin, who had retrieved a folding chair from behind the door. He offered it to her, and she sat next to the makeshift bed, resting her folded arms on the thin, paper and rose-petal covered padding of the examination table. "Well... that's why I'm here, right?" Her shot at cheerfulness fell woefully flat.

Ruby smiled anyway. "Yeah."

"Did Professor Ozpin explain everything?" Weiss asked, dreading the answer.

"Yeah," Ruby's voice broke. She struggled to clear her throat. "Weiss..."

"Ruby, don't."

"Weiss, in case I... you know..."

"Seriously, don't," it was a warning this time.

The scythe-wielder gathered her strength up to speak anyway, "No, I just need to tell you. Weiss, I mmngh-!"

The heiress kept her hand over her partner's mouth.

"Don't," Weiss glared down at her. She didn't need to hear this. Not now. Not ever. But especially not now. "I've worked too hard to help you recover to let anything to happen to you." She removed her hand, sitting back in her chair and brushing her white hair back over her shoulder, "Honestly, do you have any idea of what these past couple of days have been like for me?"

Ruby made an awkward attempt at wiping her mouth with her wrist, whining, "But I had all these great last words and everything."

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Were you going to ask me to take care of Crescent Rose?"

"... mayyyyyybe..."

The heiress rolled her eyes.

"Ahem," Ozpin, standing near the corner, made his presence known. Weiss darted him a glance, a blush creeping across her features. The headmaster was a sentry awaiting the outcome, good or bad, and she'd been here just chatting. Ruby grinned sheepishly up at her.

The heiress took one of the younger girl's calloused hand in both of hers. "I'm... not entirely sure how to do this, so just tell me if it hurts, or something."

"Okay," Ruby closed her eyes, as if she were resting, or simply going to sleep.

Weiss followed suit, breathing deeply. She shut out the sounds of the machines monitoring Ruby, the faint buzz of the dim lights overhead, the shift of fabric as Headmaster Ozpin adjusted his stance.

Gradually, a delicate white light suffused the air around her, gentle and fragile as falling snow.

Weiss had been trained in aura usage. Years, she had practiced, using it to direct her semblance, focus her glyphs, augment her natural grace and poise. She was built for speed, for precision, not to take hits, and her aura reflected this. The protection it offered her in the field was brittle- a heavy blow could shatter it and leave her with a lasting injury, or even knock her unconscious, far more easily than she would have liked to admit. So she poured all of her skill into evasion, outpacing and outmaneuvering her opponents before they could so much as touch her.

Unfortunately, those skills were of little help to her at the moment. She tightened her grip on Ruby's hand. Weiss knew the idea was to heal her, to get the poison out, something. But how was she supposed to do that when she was barely capable of taking care of her own injuries? How was she supposed to do it period? Professor Oobleck's description of the technique came from a hundred-year-old record book, and it wasn't even used for this type of affliction.

"Doing okay?" she heard Ruby murmur. "I don't really feel anything..."

"Shut up. I'm trying to concentrate," Weiss grumbled back.

She worked to keep her breathing even, blindly attempting to extend whatever recovery abilities she could to Ruby. It was supposed to be more effective between people who... well... who had some form of trust for each other. Family members were ideal, but given Ruby and Yang and Ren's rapid decline, teammates and friends were the best they could do. If only Yang weren't being affected as well. Maybe she could actually _do _something.

Then something clicked.

It was a slow draw, like her aura was thick, sluggish like syrup, flowing down her arms and into Ruby. Weiss squinted in drowsy fascination. She couldn't move.

This... didn't feel right.

Ruby's eyes came open slowly, like she'd been asleep for a long time. Panic woke behind the silver, and something else. She tried to yank her hand away, but Weiss couldn't let go. The petals that fell following Ruby's motion flickered from red to black, and her eyes shut again. Her mouth was open like she was yelling or in pain, but Weiss couldn't hear anything but a high-pitched ringing in her ears. It intensified as her vision blurred.

The last thing she saw was Ozpin striding towards them, cane in hand.

* * *

><p>Weiss blinked.<p>

She was awake, standing in the middle of a city. Or she thought it was a city. It was devoid of all signs of human life. Buildings rose up around her, tall and square, but the colors were wrong and they had no windows.

Was this a dream? She was dressed in her combat gear- her boots, her white skirt and jacket, her hair up in its signature tail. All she was missing was Myrtenaster. And Ruby.

Where was Ruby? Weiss looked around. Everything within ten yards of her was frozen solid and coated in a thin dusting of snow. Outside of her ring of white, all the colors were wrong. Pale light from a white, sunless sky lit a cityscape of pastel blues and storybook greens. She was in some sort of winding street, paved with pale-orange bricks.

Odd trees with leaves that shimmered like they were made of water had pushed their way up through the cracks and were growing everywhere, even out of the sides of buildings. Blue grass crept up over the sidewalks, and road signs were patterned with meaningless symbols.

She reached out and touched one of the leaves- it dropped from the branch and splintered into shards of ice on the frozen bricks. The sound rang loud in the silence. She cringed, but nothing moved. The wind blew. The water leafed trees sparkled, and the frozen version tinkled softly like a wind chime. Her breath misted in the air.

What was this place?

Weiss's cautious footsteps crunched in the snow and frost as she left the circle of white, her gaze flickering across her unfamiliar surroundings, "Ruby?"

There was no sign of her. There was no sign of anyone at all.

As Weiss made her way down the winding, broken brick road, the trees grew larger and closer together. Buildings changed shapes, some looming high overhead, some curving almost as if they were looking down at her. The architecture was impossible. Literally impossible. The heiress resisted the urge to cover her head when she passed under the gaze of the curious skyscrapers in case chunks of building came crashing down.

Her heart raced and her senses were on all edge, as they should be in a place where the laws of physics appeared to be a bit... less connected to reality... and yet... the place was beautiful. Sort of. In a strange way, at least. She watched a cloud of pink dandelions clinging to the sill of a non-existent window drift away on the breeze.

The air was clean and crisp; the leaves shimmered and rippled overhead in the pervading light. The trunks of the trees grew in handsome whorls, the branches curving out from odd places to support their odd liquid foliage. There were no animals, though. No birds, no insects making autumn sounds. No noise other than the wind in the trees and Weiss's boots as she clambered over the roots of a particularly massive tree shoving its way up through the pavement.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, summoning a glyph and springing to the tree limbs overhead to get a better look around. The leaves that she came into contact with ran through her hair and down her sleeves in droplets as she perched among the highest branches.

An ocean of crystal clear leaves broken only by oddly shaped buildings stretched out in every direction as far as she could see.

The silence was peaceful, but unnatural. Weiss frowned at the thought as the branches she held swayed in the slight breeze. It wasn't just the silence: everything about this place was unnatural.

The heiress dropped back to the street, shaking water from her sleeves. She had to find Ruby and get out of here.

A flicker of movement, dark and small. Weiss only caught it out of the corner of her eye before it vanished behind a tangle of crumbled rock.

The debris was different from its surroundings. It was dark- a sick, blackish green- and had a rotten smell to it. Weiss hopped down off the hill of roots to investigate.

The tumble of stones and decomposing vegetation stood out like a gash against the pale side of the building. It oozed a dark liquid, like oil or tar. Weiss inspected it, careful not to touch it.

"Hmph," she made a mental note to add this oozing bunch of rocks to her growing list of anomalies found in a city full of alien stone and weird trees. Because really.

Still, some ghost of intuition told her that the silence and the gash of stones were strange for this place. Her eyes narrowed.

Another shadow darted just around the edge of the building. Weiss snapped into action, readying a glyph as she stalked after the trace of movement.

"Ruby, if that's you, you'd better come out before I..." she rounded the corner and found herself standing on the lip of a small valley. Trees curved over the space, their roots sunk deep into the walls of buildings around the valley's edge. A stream meandered its way from a narrow alleyway on one end down into a displaced storm drain on the other. The path before Weiss sloped down, bricks giving way to a circle of bare grass and earth, patterned with the shifting shadows of the liquid leaves overhead.

A figure in a red cloak lay on its side in the center of the clearing.

"Ruby," Weiss breathed. The valley cupped her, everything curling overhead as if to protect her. Fearing that she might be too late, but remaining cautious all the same, Weiss made her way down the slope to the level floor below.

Two steps into the clearing, the ground gave out beneath her feet and she plunged knee-deep into a mire of black sludge that lay hidden beneath the dirt. She pitched forward, catching herself on her hands to keep from falling on her face.

"Ugh," she recoiled in disgust, but the muck gripped her like quicksand, pulling her deeper when she tried to right herself. She pulled one arm free, "Ruby!"

The figure in red stirred. It pushed itself up on its elbows and rose, staggering to its feet, its hood falling back over its shoulders as it turned. Weiss stared at her partner, her blood running cold

Half of Ruby's face was Grimm-black, shot with red and masked with bone. Her eyes were trained on Weiss, backed with a crimson glow. A dark scythe flickered into existence in her hands.

Weiss tried to edge backwards as her partner advanced, but she only succeeded in sinking up to her knees in the black muck. "Wait. What do you think you're doing? It's me."

The younger girl's unsteady steps stopped a few feet from the heiress. The red in her eyes ebbed as she gazed down at her, searching, expression blank. The black shifted under the bone mask half-curled across Ruby's face, crawling across her mouth. Her lips stretched back in a crooked grin, wider on the dark side of her face, exposing teeth that appeared longer, sharper than normal.

The scythe's blade- a crooked mockery of Crescent Rose's- didn't gleam when she cocked it back; it seemed to swallow the light, like a slice of unadulterated darkness.

* * *

><p>Stifling heat assaulted Blake from every side, not unlike a steam room turned up to full blast. Though, instead of clouds of steam, all she could see were roiling flames dancing in every direction. She couldn't even find the center point of the room.<p>

"Blake? Is that you?"

"Yang?" Blake followed the sound of her partner's voice, eventually stepping through a wall of flame to find Yang sitting cross-legged on the floor right in the center of a swirling pillar of fire.

The visibly weakened brawler looked up at Blake, eyes shining with something indescribable. "Hey partner. You're looking pretty _hot _in that new getup," she said with a cheeky grin.

Blake stood rooted to her spot, suddenly seething with incredulity. Here before her was someone who was facing not only death itself, but the threat of something _unfathomably worse_. And yet even at a time like this, her goofball of a partner was making stupid, _ridiculous _jokes. Anger flared in her veins, only for it to dissipate just as quickly at the sight of Yang's grin relaxing into a soft smile.

Quietly, she studied the tired face of the carefree brawler before her. This bright, shining person she'd come to trust and rely on - this person she truly could call a friend. This person she actually… cared for. Blake realized then that she would do just about anything to keep hearing those stupid jokes.

Taking the last couple of steps to close the distance between them, Blake sat right in front of Yang, mirroring her cross-legged posture with their knees practically brushing. "You already used that pun today," she said in her usual monotone, crossing her arms.

A split second look of surprise flitted across Yang's face before she laughed and rubbed the back of her head, "Heh, you caught me!"

Blake opened her mouth to speak, but quickly shut it again, unsure of what to say. She dropped her gaze to the floor as Yang dropped her arm back into her lap. They lapsed into an uneasy silence.

"Blake."

Amber eyes darted upwards to meet hardened crimson. All of Blake's senses prickled in anticipation.

"Blake, if I don't make it-"

"Yang _no_, don't even-"

"-I want you to take care of Ruby for me."

Blake's throat constricted painfully, all of her retorts dying instantly on her tongue. The weight of such a request was not lost on her. She knew as well as anyone how much Yang cared for her little sister. Having her partner place so much trust in her filled her with equal parts pride and terror.

Wide-eyed, she held Yang's gaze for what felt like an eternity, yet again unsure of what to say.

Worry began to creep into the brawler's crimson eyes at Blake's extended silence. Yang reached a tentative hand out between them.

"Blake, please-"

"Okay." Blake grabbed Yang's hand, glancing briefly at the flames radiating from each finger before locking eyes with her partner, willing every ounce of reassurance she could into a single look. She relaxed at the relief reflected in Yang's eyes. Neither of them spoke for a while, lapsing into another silence.

Eventually, Yang pulled her hand away. "So, Professor Goodwitch tells me you're going to do that aura-linking heal-y thing on me, huh?"

Blake nodded. "That's right."

Yang's eyes hardened. "What's that even going to do if one of the auras is compromised?" she asked, pointing to herself.

"I don't know…" Blake replied slowly, her face sliding into a frown, "but the professors seem to think it could help."

Yang sighed, unable to keep a hint of exasperation from slipping into her expression. "I guess it's worth a try at least. What do we have to do?"

Blake steeled herself, lifting one hand. "Well, firstly…I have to touch you."

Yang blinked, glancing down at her own flaming body, and then to the inferno surrounding them. The color drained from her face as realization slowly dawned on her. "Blake, no. Your hand will-"

Blake looked away. "It's fine. My aura will heal it… eventually."

Yang's eyes widened. "Blake, I _incinerated _the furniture in this room."

Blake scowled. "I've made up my mind."

"You can't be serious. I'm not going to let you – _Blake!_"

Without warning, Blake had already ripped off a glove, setting her teeth and bracing for the imminent searing pain. Eyes screwed shut, she waited.

It never came.

Confused, she cracked open one eye to see Yang staring at her with a shocked expression bordering on awe. Blake threw a curious glance down at her hand – it was uncomfortably hot and sweaty to be sure, but otherwise completely unscathed.

Slowly, Yang reached out to take her partner's uncovered hand in both of her own, gently turning it this way and that, carefully examining each finger and quietly marveling at the sight. Understanding flashed across the brawler's face and she leaned back suddenly, looking flustered.

Blake simply blinked, equally befuddled by her apparent sudden immunity to fire, as well as her partner's reaction. "Yang. What…"

Yang looked everywhere but at Blake, lifting one hand to rub the back of her neck. After a lengthy pause, she finally spoke, albeit haltingly.

"Sometimes, uh, a semblance's effects can be, _selective,_ under... special circumstances..."

Blake continued to stare.

"You know, the only other person my semblance doesn't really burn is Ruby," the brawler continued, finally meeting Blake's questioning gaze. Yang flashed her partner a lopsided smile. "I guess what I'm trying to say is... it looks like you're part of the family now, Blake."

Yang felt her partner tense up, the hand she'd been holding suddenly seizing her fingers in a steely grip almost as unrelenting as the unreadable stare Blake had fixed her with.

After a moment of silence, Blake leaned forward slightly. "I'm going to get this... _whatever it is_ out of you, and you're going to be _fine._"

A smile spread across Yang's face, and she laughed, giving her partner's hand a small squeeze. "OK then! Let's do this."

Blake leaned back again and watched Yang's eyes slide shut before slowly closing her own, allowing herself to drift off into a sea of welcoming flames.

Blake concentrated all of her energy on the hands resting atop her own, willing her aura forward through her fingertips. It was a gracelessly executed technique, brash even, to impose on another's aura so forcefully, but having learned nearly everything firsthand on the field of battle, the largely self-taught Faunus had very little formal training in "proper" aura usage outside of what she'd learned at Beacon.

Blake frowned as her thoughts drifted. Aura certainly had its uses, offensive and defensive alike, and if it meant keeping her teammates in one piece, maybe learning a bit more about it wouldn't be the worst idea, considering her literal damage-sponge of a partner. Blake's concentration faltered momentarily as she considered taking extra lessons and the work it might entail.

Her mind didn't have long to wander when a prick of heat pierced her aura - the flames in the room suddenly spiking in intensity a millisecond later, roaring loud enough for her Faunus ears to instinctually flatten in protest. The white-hot sensation traveled into her hand, slowly working its way through her veins. Assuming the heat was her partner's own aura, Blake took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. So Yang's aura was a bit on the scalding side. That was to be expected, right?

She cracked open an eye to check on Yang. Complete darkness met her. Confused amber eyes flew open, wide and searching. The darkness surrounding her now was decidedly unnatural - even her Faunus eyes were of no use. She could still hear the flames, still feel Yang's hands holding her own, but it was as if all light had vanished. An attempt to turn her head revealed her inability to move, setting the paralyzed Faunus further on edge. This was not an effect she remembered from her previous attempts at healing others.

Still, she had very little experience with using aura in this manner, so she did her best to push her rising panic aside, despite the heat in her veins practically searing her from the inside out. She could feel it languidly flowing through her arm, stopping only for a moment to change direction as it deftly skirted past her shoulder and began heading towards her chest.

Against her better judgment, Blake forced herself to relax, allowing her partner's aura whatever it needed.

Just as it reached her heart, two shining predatory eyes opened right before her face, the glowing irises flickering wildly between amethyst and crimson.

Blake had no time to react.

In an instant, the spreading heat shot through the rest of her body, up into her head, and behind her eyes, flooding her vision in blinding white.


	10. So Much Worse

When Ozpin had come out to fetch Weiss, Nora had lost patience altogether and poked her head into Ren's room, "Can we come in yet?"

Both Ren and Professor Port started, turning to look at the impatient hammer-wielder. With a glance back at each other, the professor nodded and took a step back. Ren offered a small smile to his partner, stretching a hand out to her. "Nora, come here."

Professor Port raised a bushy eyebrow at the request. "Young man, you _do _realize your barrier is still active."

Ren kept his hand outstretched.

Nora took one look at her semi-reclined partner, her face breaking out into that trademark, manic grin, and took a running leap. She turned in the air, landing flat on the pink, now-pliable surface of Ren's barrier. It caught her like a net.

"Eeeeeee," she said as it sagged down till she was within a few inches of her partner. Then, all at once, she was through, falling briefly and heavily right on top of Ren.

Without even giving him a chance to recover, Nora laughed, throwing her arms around his shoulders, "Wow! That was fun. We should do this every time your aura starts acting all funny."

Jaune stood in the doorway. He glanced at Pyrrha, feeling suddenly that his entire distract-Nora-by-taking-her-to-get-the-laundry mission had been a colossal waste of time. "Why didn't we try that?"

Pyrrha glanced back at Jaune, both eyebrows raised. "When the medical staff and I tried to push through, that barrier was as solid as stone," she replied, hesitating at the doorway as well and only moving forward when the professor motioned for them to enter. She pulled Jaune along with her to stand in the corner, offering a small encouraging smile and a wave to her ailing teammate currently being crushed by his partner.

Looking somewhat pained, Ren still managed to offer a small wave back to his teammates before turning his attention to Nora. In a rare display of affection, he placed an arm around her, pulling her close. "Nora," he called, bringing his partner's bright teal eyes up to meet his own. A look of understanding passed between them. Ren's small smile returned. "After this, let's make pancakes."

"With _tons _of syrup," Nora rested her forehead on his.

Her aura hovered close to her skin, strong, electric pink. She closed her eyes, extending it to her childhood friend.

When she opened her eyes, she was standing on a lake of glass. Gray clouds hung low and close overhead, blending with the heavy mist that blanketed her surroundings.

A single tree crouched low on a hillock in the center of the smooth surface. Dark suggestions of hills and mountains loomed, shadows in the distance. An oppressive silence reigned.

Nora blinked, surveying the lifeless, colorless landscape.

Then she took a deep breath, cupping her hands around her mouth to yell at the top of her lungs, "REN~! Come out come out wherever you are!"

The placid surface of the glass rippled slightly from Nora's call, infinitesimal waves radiating outwards from her feet. Gradually, the focal point of the ripples drifted away, stopping after just a few feet. A small point of white emerged from the ripples, slowly rising out of the water to reveal a lotus flower, drifting aimlessly about on the once again placid surface.

A few feet away, another flower emerged, this one slightly more wilted. Another appeared after that, and another, and then another, the trail of wilting flora leading directly to that solitary tree in the distance.

Nora circled around the first lotus, fascinated. The ripples subsided at once wherever she stepped.

"Is this follow the leader? I love this game!" she trailed after the emerging flowers, humming contentedly, but casting glances to either shore just in case.

Bright green lightning suddenly tore across the sky, snapping downwards not unlike a coiled snake, over and over, striking the lotus flowers one by one and setting them alight, peals of thunder following close after.

The emerald flashes of light illuminated the area in staccato bursts of visibility, bringing the tree in the distance into better focus - gnarled, dripping blackness, and completely out of place. The now-glowing lotus flowers kept the newly-broken gloom at bay, offering a crystal clear view of a mirror-image world beneath the surface of the lake.

Though the tree on the hillock, the flowers leading up to it, the lakeside in the distance, and the flowered hills and mountains beyond were all identical, the colors in the world below were vivid, sporting bright greens, pinks, yellows, blues, and even reds in the case of the tree.

The main difference however, was Ren himself, standing right beneath Nora. He knelt down, leaning forward to place one hand to the surface, the bright blue skies below clearly visible through the gaping black hole in his chest.

_"Nora..." _His voice sounded distant, as if he were miles away rather than inches. _"can you hear me...?"_

Nora blinked down at the world of colors, then up at the trail leading to the dark tree, then back at the Ren beneath her feet. The hole in her friend's chest gave her pause. She shot him a casual salute, "Hey Dream-Ren. Wow, your side looks like more fun than mine. Is that creepy oozing tree over there the problem?"

Ren nodded, standing and motioning for her to follow as he continued along the path of lotus flowers to the hillock. _"I sealed off as much as I could," _his voice drifted up through the lake's surface, _"but it's breaking through." _

He pointed to the vibrant cherry tree on his side of the world, enormous, elegant, but slowly being suffocated by obsidian roots jutting through the ground and wrapping around its trunk.

"That's not so good," Nora leaned her face close to the surface of the glass lake to get a better view. "Hm... guess I'd better knock it out then, huh?"

She rose and held her hands out, and Magnhild appeared. Not with a flicker, not with a bang- just one second there was nothing, and the next Nora's sleek, silver and pink hammer was there, fully extended and ready for action. She hadn't even bothered to note that she was in her full combat gear- white shirt, pink skirt, armored vest.

It was all old-hat, almost. At least, she knew how dreamscapes worked, even if this one was a little creepier than the ones she typically found herself in. Her hands gripped the familiar shaft of her war hammer and she hefted the weapon over her shoulder. She gave Dream-Ren a thumbs-up, "Just give me a sec, okay?" and started towards the tree, glancing up and around in case anything decided to jump out of the mist.

Ren followed along beneath the surface a few paces behind, steps heavy with fatigue. Movement caught the corner of his eye. The gnarled roots twisted around the trunk of his tree had sprouted a flower. Ren stopped in his tracks, examining the strange bud from a distance - bone-white, basketball sized, but otherwise unremarkable.

His eyes left it for only a moment, glancing away to see if there was a copy of it in the other world, when he heard a sharp _POP_. Time seemed to slow down as he felt thousands of pencil-sized needles pierce every inch of his body. As he pitched forward, landing hard on his side, he caught sight of the flower again. It had bloomed, its interior a pulsing, swirling void of black and red, framed by jagged teeth-like petals.

Ren stretched out a hand, reaching for his partner who was still headed towards the gnarled black tree above.

_"N...o..."_

His eyes shut.

All at once the world rebelled. A violent howling wind tore through the air and across the lake, instantly snuffing out the light from the lotus flowers as it whisked them away entirely, erasing the world below from view and dropping the area back into gloom. The ground shook as the skies broke open, throwing the lake into roiling upheaval from the vicious torrent of hail and lightning raining down on the once placid surface.

Nora dropped to one knee, pulling a cupped slab of glass free from the surface of the roiling lake. Handles formed on the concave side and she slid her arm through, hoisting it over her head to use as a shield from the rain and hail. She waited out the storm a second, eyes wide as the tree before her began to shift.

Sitting directly in the center of the storm, the gnarled oozing tree pulsed and grew, stretching towards the sky and extending its crooked branches out over the water, stopping just before they reached Nora. The tree jerked and shuddered, a gaping hole suddenly opening up in its trunk.

A familiar figure emerged from the tree, illuminated in brief bursts by the relentless lightning.

Ren.

He stood silently with his back to Nora.

Nora steadied herself as a wave caused the glass to roll under her feet.

"Aw, man, and I thought this would be easy," she was hesitant to make a move towards her friend. He stood there, unmoving. A dark statue. For the first time, uncertainty crept into her voice, "Ren?"

The figure remained completely motionless, unaffected even by the raging winds, not a single hair or piece of fabric flying out of place.

A low desperate whisper echoed through air, beneath the din of the storm.

_"H...e...l...p..."_

* * *

><p>Summoning a glyph, Weiss launched herself and a significant amount of muck partway back up the slope as Ruby lunged forward, her weapon a blur. The strike scattered the trail of black falling away from the heiress.<p>

Time slowed down. Weiss watched as her partner carried through with her swing in slow motion, bringing the scythe around and bracing to leap after her.

This was Ruby.

Ruby. Her face a snarl, half-Grimm or more, attacking her.

Weiss stared, speechless. What was she going to do?

Time sped back up; the heiress threw herself into a back handspring and Ruby's blade sliced through empty space.

Think.

Weiss ducked another lightning-quick sweep of the scythe, using her semblance to dart away through a patch of water-tree saplings. The leaves cascaded around her, then splattered as Ruby shot through, hot on her heels.

Weiss cleared the grove of trees and summoned another glyph, changing direction. She was unarmed. She needed space; to breathe, to _think_. She sprang off of trees, through thickets, tracing an erratic path through the overgrown streets as Ruby dogged her; unflinching, relentless, she chased her up the hill and into an open street, her blade only ever inches behind the heiress. Then, all at once, Ruby vanished in a blur of blackened rose petals.

Weiss whirled breathing hard, knowing she'd come from behind- Ruby always came from behind- and summoned a blue glyph.

Ruby smacked into the glyph head first; it flared white-blue and repelled the girl with enough force to send her sprawling backwards, scythe skidding across the bricks.

The blackness writhed across Ruby's skin like living ink. She levered herself up, throwing her hand out. The scythe appeared in the air as if summoned. The eye behind the bone mask glowed pure crimson as her hand closed around the weapon's shaft.

Weiss stood, shaky, wary, ready to call forth her semblance at the first sign of her partner's movement.

Her mind raced. She needed time. A sword. Something.

_Something, _because Ruby was a Grimm.

The thought repeated, unbidden: she was a Grimm, or fast becoming one.

Ruby Rose. Soulless.

The darkness to humanity's light.

Was she too late to even help? Weiss gritted her teeth, giving ground as Ruby swung her scythe hard. The blade scored the earth before and behind her so a long stripe of it bled black and green.

Weiss crouched, ready to move. If her partner was a Grimm, that meant that she would have to... have to...

Her gaze strayed to the unmasked side of her partner's face. She'd never seen her look so angry, but the expression, the skin was hers. Maybe she was still in there somewhere. "Ruby, if you can hear me-"

The red lines in the mask of bone glowed hot and red as she dragged the scythe, its tip embedded in the brick, tearing open the ground as she began her slow approach. The trees jutting from the brick pavement nearby began to wither and die.

"-stop this," Weiss backed off, maintaining eye contact. She held one hand behind herself to avoid any trees or debris she hadn't noticed. "Stop and let me-"

She had to throw herself to the side as Ruby blinked out of sight in a flurry of black petals. Weiss threw up a glyph even as she rolled to her feet, but this time Ruby hit it so hard it shattered, showering Weiss's coat and leg with burning splinters of blue. Another glyph, white this time, and the fencer was shooting through an alley, leaping off the sides of buildings and up into the trees in some half-formed hope of the branches slowing her partner down.

Weiss knew that she couldn't keep running for long-she didn't have the stamina, and Ruby's semblance was speed. Really, the only thing currently preventing her from being sliced in half was her heavy glyph usage and ability to read and predict her partner's attacks.

Abruptly, her thoughts checked, skipping back and latching onto one thing: Ruby's semblance.

Grimm didn't have souls. They lacked semblances, but Ruby still had hers.

Weiss turned mid-air to snatch a glance at Ruby's position and got a black glyph up just in time to prevent her head being taken off. She stuck a landing backwards on the railing of a fire escape that gripped a blank-walled building. The thin metal groaned under even her slight weight.

Grimm Ruby hung suspended with her scythe, caught in the glyph's staying power. A wild sound tore from the girl's throat as she fought to get through it.

"Ruby, I'm going to figure out how to help you," Weiss clenched her free fist, her other hand shaking with the effort of keeping her glyph up.

How could she have even _thought _it was too late? This was Ruby- not twelve hours ago she'd been eating pancakes and asking for bedtime stories.

Wherever this place was, however far gone she might be, Weiss was going to get her back.

She leaned in to yell over her partner's snarls, "Do you hear me, you stupid, useless, _idiot?! I'm going to help you!_"

The red lines across Ruby's bone half-mask flared, livid. She screamed with rage. Patterns of black drew in close to the mask, and to Weiss's horror, the bone crept a little farther across her partner's face. The lines burned hotter. Trees nearby withered and blackened; stone crumbled. The fire escape Weiss was perched on began to corrode rapidly.

The fencer braced, preparing to release her glyph. Her eyes stung, but she ignored that and sprang away again as the railing collapsed altogether.

Ruby, free of the glyph, shot forward, lashing out with her scythe and carving an enormous wedge out of the building. It slid out of place slowly, bleeding the oily substance that followed her blade's strikes. Ruby landed on the orange-bricked street, face twisted with hatred. The crimson flickered in her eyes.

She gripped the dark scythe, teeth bared, red streaks blazing against bone. The bricks cracked and split as she kicked off, once more in pursuit.

Thin branches whipped Weiss's clothes and face as she dove into the cover of a tangle of both trees and... lampposts? Their long, iron stalks stretched up stories high, twining with the limbs of the trees.

There had to be a way to save Ruby. As long as she hadn't stopped using her semblance, or that mask... What would happen if it finished covering her face? Somehow Weiss knew that would be the end. Ruby wouldn't be Ruby anymore.

At least she had a way to gauge her chances of success, or at least tell if they were above zero.

A shot rang out and sparks jumped from a lamppost next to her head. Weiss flung herself down, flitting between obstacles till her boots hit the ground and she was running, ducking through tangles of roots and vines in an effort to buy herself some time.

How did you fight a poison in someone's soul? The professors' idea to use their auras to try and expel it had seemed like a good one, but now Weiss was here. Wherever 'here' was.

She continued to dodge and weave through the undergrowth, breathing hard, untouchable as Ruby fired shots after her. But for how long? Her arms burned, her lungs burned; she would have to finish this quickly.

She thought of the mask again for a second. Maybe she could get it off of Ruby somehow, but how was it even attached? Did it grow through the skin, fusing into her skull? What happened to a Grimm when you removed its mask? It would doubtless take skin with it, if not more. The mere thought of it made her own scar twinge. Maybe she'd file that idea away as a plan B. Or C, if she could think of a plan B.

If she could just... incapacitate Ruby for a short amount of time, maybe she could try using her aura again. It hadn't worked before, and she couldn't see any reason it would be likely to work now. Unless she'd done something wrong the last time, which was entirely possible. It seemed sensible to try, though. Plus, she really didn't have an overabundance of time to figure anything else out.

Weiss drew up short as Ruby appeared in front of her, seeming to flicker into existence by the use of her semblance. She didn't get a glyph up in time and barely managed to throw herself to the ground as the dark scythe sheered through trees and iron posts alike, cutting a diagonal swath that would have left Weiss's head, left shoulder, and arm separate from the rest of her body if she hadn't dropped.

So much for slowing Ruby down. The half-Grimm girl used the momentum of her swing and another shot- had the scythe been a rifle before?- to leap into a whirling arc through the falling trees towards her partner.

Weiss pushed off the dirt, throwing her arm up just in time to take a vicious kick meant for her head. She dodged another sweep of the dark blade.

Iron clanged and water rushed as the lampposts and trees began to fall. Weiss was too busy evading Ruby's ferocious advances to pay them much mind; the scythe laid waste to everything in its path.

Part one of the plan: incapacitate Ruby. Weiss gritted her teeth, diving under Grimm Ruby's swing to come up on her other side. She could use a trap glyph-

A deluge of liquid leaves struck her full force, showering from above, momentarily blinding her. Panic spiked, and Weiss flung up a blue glyph with one hand, guessing where Ruby might come from even as she stumbled back, swiping water from her eyes.

Her guess was wrong.

Through her blurred vision she saw it- maybe if she hadn't been fatigued from such heavy use of her semblance, she could have dodged, or moved. But as it was she only registered Ruby's hate-filled face, the muscle of her entire form behind the swing of her scythe.

The sweep that would have shorn Weiss in half was deflected by a falling lamppost. It screeched against the blade, and a second iron post crashed down on the startled Ruby's head and shoulders, knocking her off her feet and pinning her among the other debris.

Weiss staggered backwards, still coughing and spluttering, cringing to avoid the branches and iron poles toppling around her in the wake of Ruby's crazed attacks. A white glyph sent her stumbling out of harm's way, where she braced herself against what appeared to be a post office box with no slot for mail. She wiped her hair out of her face, dripping, hands shaking after the near-miss. She inhaled deeply, trying to regulate her breathing.

Where was Ruby?

Water from the downed trees' destroyed leaves mixed with the sludge weeping from the cut trunks and trickled underfoot as Weiss climbed over the mess of fallen trees and posts. She spotted her partner on the ground, still pinned on her stomach beneath a hefty iron lamppost. The younger girl's eyes were closed. Aside from the soft rise and fall of her chest, she wasn't moving.

Well. That hadn't exactly gone according to plan, but Weiss wasn't going to complain.

She crept towards her partner, right hand raised to summon another glyph should she need to make a quick retreat.

Ruby remained where she lay, the human side of her face showing. Her expression was peaceful, as if she were sleeping. The longer pieces of her hair trailed in the water that used to be leaves.

"Alright," the heiress breathed, her sodden clothes still dripping. She knelt cautiously, taking one of her partner's hands, blue eyes cutting to her face and back.

Ruby's hand was streaked with black, like someone had smeared it with paint. The smears sort of followed the lines of her veins and arteries; down her wrist and the back of her hand, spreading toward her knuckles. Grimm-black.

Weiss took a steadying breath. The sounds of the wind in the water-leaves faded. The pain in her forearm from Ruby's kick earlier diminished under the cleansing focus of her aura.

The younger girl didn't move.

Weiss had to concentrate. So far so good. She watched as the discoloration staining Ruby's skin receded, slowly retreating beneath her sleeve. Weiss relaxed a little. It was working. Why or how, she didn't have any idea- she wasn't doing anything different from before that she knew of- but she wasn't above letting the technical details go unquestioned till later. For now, she took measured breaths, directing her aura's healing abilities towards her partner and hoping against hope that it would keep working.

Then Ruby's eyes opened.

They were red.

Her hand locked around Weiss's, dragging her forward. The heiress tried to jerk away, but Ruby was already sinking her teeth into her wrist.

Weiss shrieked, striking out at Ruby and scrambling away as soon as the girl released her.

"You- you _bit _me!" she clutched at her wrist in disbelief as Grimm Ruby spat into the dirty water pooling on the bricks. "What-"

Suddenly, her vision blurred. Weiss blinked to clear it and looked down at the blood seeping between her fingers.

It was black.

* * *

><p>The blinding white light faded as quickly as it came, and Blake found herself blinking rapidly, wrapped once more in a seemingly endless void of unnatural darkness. Fortunately, her other senses picked up the slack. She was standing now, alone, the roar of flames replaced with the light tones of water droplets hitting steel, almost melodic in nature.<p>

The sound at least partially explained the acrid metallic scent assaulting her nose, carried by a gentle heated wind that tousled her hair. Blake raised an eyebrow, lifting her hands to touch her face, her exposed Faunus ears, her arms. The fireproof suit had been replaced by what felt like her usual combat gear, sans weapon.

Slowly, carefully, still trying to piece together what exactly was happening, Blake turned on her heel, straining her eyes to see something, anything to give her a sense of direction. Finally - directly behind her and impossibly far away, she spotted the choppy, fragmented image of what looked like a golden mountain.

Blake squinted at the outlandish sight. It was as if someone had sliced the mountain into a million tiny separate pieces and left them to lie in the shape of its former self. When she tilted her head, the small golden pieces shifted about, some growing larger, some shrinking, others appearing and disappearing altogether. Her eyes widened a fraction. The mountain wasn't fragmented - something was blocking her view. A whole _lot _of something.

For a long while, the vigilant Faunus stood motionless, all senses on high alert, quietly trying to make sense of the world around her. Tentatively she reached her arms out, feeling for anything nearby, but she found nothing.

She was definitely standing on a solid surface - the resounding _clink _that sounded when she tapped it with the toe of her boots revealing it to be some form of metal - but the drafts of wind passing her at an upwards angle told her it was likely not the ground.

Blake took a chance and called for her missing partner. "Yang?..." She listened as her voice echoed into nothingness. Her ears flattened slightly when no reply came, though unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, she could have sworn the mountain in the distance had started to shimmer.

Frustration and worry began to set in, drawing a scowl across Blake's features. Nothing made sense, she had no idea where she was, where her partner was, or what she was even supposed to do - she couldn't even _see_. The lone mountain in the distance was her only lead, but caution kept her from moving towards it.

Blake clenched her teeth. Yang might be out there somewhere, hurting, waiting, and standing still wasn't going to solve anything. Hands tightening into fists, Blake threw caution to the wind and took a purposeful step forward.

She plummeted into emptiness.

Wind whipped past Blake's face for only a moment before something clipped her, hard, on the right side. The impact sent her spiraling, slamming her into something else solid, and then into another, and another. Biting back the pain, Blake blindly grabbed at the next solid object that checked her in the shoulder, clinging to it for dear life. At the touch of her hands, the object in her grasp flickered to life, glowing a soft gold. A pipe.

Blake could feel the object gently pulling something from her, draining her even as she clambered to kneel on top of it. She watched, fascinated, as the light sped away through the pipe beneath her, illuminating a broken, jagged path straight for the mountain in the distance. Light branched off from the pipe everywhere it connected with another, slowly bringing the world before her to light.

Pipes of all sizes and lengths stretched endlessly into the distance, set at nearly every angle, branching out from one another and connecting again. The soft glow originating from Blake's position spidered through the chaotic latticework of steel all around her, lighting the entire structure within seconds.

There was no sky. No ground. Nothing but the surrounding darkness, the pipes, and the mountain they all connected to. Blake's vision began to swim, and she quickly stood, yanking her hands away from the glowing pipe beneath her. The gentle pulling sensation stopped.

A shiver ran through her. Aura. These things were trying to drain her aura. Whether this was something normal or not, collapsing here wouldn't do anyone any good. She made a mental note to be extremely careful to avoid touching them directly.

On the bright side, she now had a visible route to the mountain. After taking a moment to scope the easiest path, Blake set off, pausing occasionally to call for Yang on the off chance she might be nearby.

Time lost all meaning as she trekked through the alien landscape, allowing herself to break into a run once she'd recovered some from the initial shock of being drained. As the mountain loomed ever closer, she noticed the shimmering she had seen was actually smoke.

Billowing clouds of white poured from the very top, as well as from countless caverns riddling the sides. One column of smoke however stood out like a sore thumb, right near the heart of the mountain, pitch black against a golden backdrop. Blake's eyes narrowed at her new target.

When she finally arrived where her steel path stabbed into the mountainside, she found the terrain surprisingly gentle - soft fields of yellow grass peppered with dandelions, even the outcrops of sandy-colored rock were smooth and unimposing.

She only had to scale a few steep switchbacks before reaching the cave she sought after. Streaks of soot stretched out from the cave entrance, wilting everything it touched. Senses on high alert, Blake entered the cavern.

It was only in the darkness of the cave that she realized the rocks of this mountain had a slight glow to them. Even a human would have been able to see in this place. The caves branched off countless times, but tracing the path into the center of the mountain was simply a matter of following the smoke creeping along overhead, streaking the ceiling and parts of the walls with an oily black substance.

The deeper she traveled, the thicker the smoke became, until it was nearly level with her head. Finally, just as she was sure she would have to start crawling, the tunnel opened up into what was probably once a grand cavern, now partially caved in.

The smoking bones of dead Grimm littered the floor in a pile that nearly reached the blackened stalactites hanging from ceiling like obsidian teeth. A speck of bright yellow lying near the bottom of the pile caught Blake's eye.

"_Yang!_"

She rushed towards her fallen partner, dread gripping her the closer she came to the half-buried brawler. Suddenly, Yang moved, holding up a hand. The simple motion immediately halted Blake in her tracks, just a few feet away. Moving slower than molasses, her partner lifted herself onto her elbows, a cascade of bones falling away from on top of her as she shifted, revealing her back. Blake's blood ran cold. White bony spires protruded from Yang's spine, oily blackness spreading from their bases, slowly wrapping around the brawler's torso and spiraling around her arms.

Even at this distance, Blake could see Yang's eyes flashing desperately between amethyst and crimson, her partner's usually-smiling face contorted in anguish.

"Yang..."

The brawler's eyes snapped up to meet her own, one final flicker of amethyst fading to red as she mouthed a single phrase.

_I'm sorry._

A desperate cry tore from the struggling blonde seconds later as her back arched and she erupted into bright red flames. Blake darted backwards out of instinct, eyes widening. The cry assaulting her ears deepened, distorting into a roar as the flames darkened to black and continued to spread, ultimately engulfing the entire pile of bones and forcing Blake back to the cavern entrance.

All at once the flames dispersed, leaving a smoldering white and red pile of bones in their wake. Bones that... began to move. Blake stood rooted to her spot in equal parts fascination and horror as a distinct form rose up from the pile. A Grimm dragon - its long serpentine form clicking and clacking as the bones that comprised its body shifted about whenever it moved. Two glowing red eyes locked onto Blake. The dragon's gaping maw opened wide, black sparks jumping deep in the back of its throat.

Blake fled. She rounded the nearest corner just in time as a pillar a black fire shot through the path she'd just been on. Breathing hard, she pushed herself to run faster, racing for the surface, one thought repeating itself over and over in her head.

Yang is gone.

_Yang is gone._


	11. Wreckage

Thundering steps shook the earth, breaking Blake from her thoughts. That thing was following her. That thing... that had once been her partner. Blake's vision swam as she rounded another corner, not from exhaustion as she shot forward down each turn, sending shadow clones in the wake of each burst in speed, but from tears building in her eyes, threatening to spill down her face.

Yang. Her partner's tortured expression burned in her mind's eye, a thousand times more excruciating than the black flames licking at her heels as she took another corner at full tilt. She had been too late. She had _failed._ No cheerful smile and stupid joke would be waiting for her when - if - she escaped this place.

Blake bit back a sob as an infuriated roar exploded from the path behind her. She could still hear the essence of her partner's voice buried deep within the inhuman sound. Another roar shook rocks from the ceiling as she rounded the last corner, finally laying eyes on the entrance from which she'd come. She bolted down the long, straight path, turning back to glance at her pursuer just in time to see it opening its mouth wide, sparks flying once more. Blake dropped, flattening herself to the ground seconds before a cone of black flames shot through the tunnel, just grazing the tips of her Faunus ears.

The second the flames dispersed, she shot forward again, not daring to look back. Her ears picked up the distant crackle of sparks. She was nearly out. Heat crept up behind her, backed by the mixed roars of the flames themselves and the beast that expelled them. Blake crossed the threshold, immediately strafing left. She pressed herself to side of the mountain as black flames exploded from the cave's opening, instantly incinerating the shadow clone she'd left in her wake. The Grimm dragon itself emerged seconds later, knocking the exhausted Faunus clear off the mountainside and sending chunks of rock spraying in every direction as it burst forth from the mountain, snaking through the air and up towards the mountain's smoking peak.

One of the larger pipes forcibly broke Blake's fall, knocking the wind straight from her lungs. She laid on her back for a moment, feeling that same gentle pull at her aura as she watched the Grimm dragon wreak havoc on the smaller pipes above, shattering the chaotic latticework with equally chaotic thrashing.

Something about the sight made the Faunus's blood boil.

Not only had that… that_ thing _taken her partner away, now it had the gall to try destroying this strangely beautiful place? This place that was for all intents and purposes, and extension of her partner's very soul?

Unforgivable.

Blake struggled to her feet as broken pieces of the smaller pipes from above rained down around her.

_Unforgivable. _

Fueled by rage, Blake darted upwards, leaping from pipe to pipe, climbing ever higher, determined to reach the soulless affliction currently writhing through the air of her partner's world. She grabbed one of the larger falling pipes on the way up. It wasn't Gambol Shroud, but it would have to do.

Her movements caught the dragon's attention, just as she'd hoped. It whirled around, belching a line of fire directly into the path of Blake's ascent. She dove to the side, just as the flames shot by, singing the spot where she'd just been standing. Blake growled audibly. She needed to get closer.

No sooner had the thought entered her mind, the Grimm dragon suddenly charged towards her, as if sharing the same line of thinking. Blake crouched - tense, waiting. When she could see the minute ridges on the dragon's nose, she shot sideways, releasing a clone that disappeared into the dragon's gaping maw.

A split-second later, when the bone-plated head passed by her, she shot forward, driving the jagged end of her pipe between two of the Grimm's conjoining bones, pushing it deep into the creature's neck.

Black sludge spewed from the wound, and the Grimm reared back, nearly deafening Blake with a hideous point-blank screech. Her heart nearly stopped when its angry glowing red orbs shifted to a clear, unmistakable amethyst color for one solid second.

In that same instant, the soft glow of the pipes around her suddenly doubled in intensity, sending a wave of light back towards the mountain behind them, where she could hear a distinct rumble beginning. Blake didn't have time to comprehend any of it - the long black tail of the dragon blindsided her, sending her flying upwards into the partially destroyed area above.

A jagged piece of broken pipe caught her shoulder, abruptly halting her ascension. Before she had a chance to right herself, the dragon's tail followed through with another relentless strike, sending her careening back down into yet another broken pipe - this one spearing her through the side.

Blake heaved, trying to push through the shock to her system. She had just enough time to register the Grimm dragon overhead, its eyes once again bright crimson as it barreled straight into her.

Pipe after pipe shattered beneath Blake's back as the Grimm dragon aided gravity in pushing her down through the chaotic metal latticework. It didn't occur to her how strange it actually was for metal to be shattering - she was too focused on the bright red orbs set deep in the bony mask of the snout pressing into her stomach. Amber eyes darted back and forth between them, frantically searching for any sign of the amethyst she'd seen just moments earlier.

Yang was still in there somewhere. She had to be. Blake refused to accept any other possibility. Summoning up the dregs of her strength, Blake gritted her teeth and pushed herself to the side, out from underneath the Grimm dragon's nose. She managed an unsteady landing near the juncture of two pipes, watching those angry red orbs track her as the Grimm circled around, readying for another strike. Maybe she could still do something. Maybe it wasn't too late.

Muscles screaming in protest, Blake set her jaw, gripped the two feet or so of jagged pipe protruding from her side, and _pulled_. A few agonizing seconds later, it finally came free with a wholly unpleasant _squelch_. Stars danced behind Blake's eyes and her head started to spin, but she gripped the bloodied piece of pipe like a trophy, grounding herself with the feel of heated metal in her hands.

The Grimm dragon bore down on her, not bothering to snake through the openings in the interlocking pipes. Blake crouched down, listening to the world around her shatter as the dragon simply smashed through everything in its way. She tensed as the pipe beneath her feet began to shake, ready to spring if it gave way.

She didn't have a solid plan - she didn't even know for sure how to bring Yang back, _if _she could bring her back - but she knew that stabbing the beast had caused the brief flash of amethyst.

So, she was going to stab it, as many times as she needed to, until those eyes _stayed _amethyst.

Part of her knew the idea was reckless and poorly though out, but the rest of her simply held fast to the raw hope that was slowly taking root within her.

She whispered a quiet promise, as much to herself as to the Grimm dragon speeding towards her, only feet away now.

"_You're going to be fine..._"

Amber eyes remained locked on the snarling beast as it neared, mere inches away now. The Grimm roared, and snapped down on its target, spluttering in confusion when the thing in its mouth dissolved. A shadow clone.

Blake descended from above, ramming her pipe deep behind its head, right where the bony mask met its neck. That same hideous shriek tore through the air as the Grimm whirled around, snapping its jaws down on another shadow clone. Blake had already moved.

A triumphant smile flickered across Blake's face as she caught sight of that beautiful flicker of amethyst from her position a few feet above. She snatched up one of the myriad pipes falling from the weakened structure overhead, and immediately shot back down, plunging her new weapon deep into the dragon's back. With a bellowing roar, the dragon looped back over itself, biting down on yet another shadow clone.

Another pipe stabbed into its shoulder, another into its haunches. Yet another pierced the back of its knee, followed by a particularly long pipe driving straight into its side. With each blow, the unbroken pipes around them brightened, shooting light back into the golden mountain in the distance, but Blake kept her eyes trained on those two red orbs throughout her assault, tensing as she watched the flashes of amethyst grow in number and duration.

The Grimm dragon writhed in livid agony, its frustration spiking with each pipe embedded in its body and each smoky shadow clone that dissipated between its teeth or disintegrated in a line of fire. A pipe plunging deep into its stomach was the last straw.

New pipe already in hand, Blake's ears flattened mid-turn at the deafening roar that came seconds before the impossibly large solid wall of flames suddenly headed in her direction.

There was no escape.

She caught a glimpse of horrified amethyst as the black flames passed over her - a strange sight to see coming from the usually expressionless eyes of a Grimm.

Smoke filled Blake's lungs, stripping her of breath and burning her from the inside out, violent coughs wracking her body as she plummeted once more, her attacker hot in pursuit. The flames themselves hadn't burned in the way she expected - she found herself coated in a slick black substance that felt closer to acid eating away at her skin, eerily reminiscent of the very same shifting substance she'd seen wrapping around Yang.

Her thoughts halted as she landed with a heavy crunch on a pipe the size of a highway. Pain was the only thing left. Pain drove her to stand. Pain drove her to grip the pipe in her hand. And a very different kind of pain drove her to lock eyes with the flickering amethyst and crimson diving straight at her.

All or nothing.

Now or never.

Do or die.

Blake seemed incapable of forming coherent thoughts longer than three words as she watched the Grimm dragon's mouth open wide, black sparks dancing deep behind rows of jagged white. She crouched down, ready, waiting, counting out the seconds by the drops of slick blackness falling from her fingertips.

The sparks erupted into flames. Blake sprang, leaping straight through them, deep into the mouth eagerly waiting to swallow her whole. Unfortunately for the Grimm dragon, she planned on being _incredibly _unpalatable.

In a final burst of speed, she shot through the back of the dragon's neck, piercing a path for herself with the jagged pipe in her hands. A shower of black blood trailed behind her as she exploded out the other side.

A blinding flash of gold shot through the pipes all around, feeding blazing light into the quaking mountainside, providing a strangely beautiful shimmering backdrop for the writhing Grimm currently choking on a shadow clone and its own oily blood.

Blake barely had time to grab and hoist herself up onto one of the pipes hanging overhead to keep herself from falling when the mountain - volcano? - erupted, spilling light back into the latticework of pipes.

Flames erupted everywhere. Every broken-ended pipe the Grimm dragon had shattered in its careless thrashing exploded into jets of crimson fire.

Within seconds the entire area was roiling and churning, bathing both Blake and her soulless nemesis in an indiscriminate firestorm.

Panic gripped Blake as searing heat engulfed her body, agonized gasps muffled only by her clenched teeth. Seconds from blacking out, the pain suddenly subsided, lessening into a mere ache as the oily black substance coating her began to dissolve.

Dazed yet intrigued, Blake watched the darkened streaks leave her hand, travel up and off her arms, all of it forcefully removed by the bright red flames. She almost smiled at the familiar warmth of the blazing inferno against her newly cleansed skin. There was no doubt in her mind - these were Yang's flames.

A piercing shriek startled her, nearly toppling her from her perch.

Below her, the Grimm dragon twisted and thrashed in sheer agony, snarling and screaming bloody murder as it writhed about like a vile poisonous worm impaled on a hook. The flames burning it from every side were driving it mad.

A sudden jerk of the dragon's head brought its eyes into view, clearly flashing amethyst. Blake tracked her target in silence, eyebrows furrowing as the Grimm's movements became sporadic and choppy. She felt herself tensing up despite the exhaustion creeping up her bones, her grip tightening around the pipe still in her hands as she watched the frantic war between amethyst and crimson.

Adrenaline surged through the once-weary Faunus, washing away her exhaustion with waves of raw energy. Amethyst was winning.

Blake shouted over the chaos, "Yang! _Keep fighting!_"

The Grimm dragon's head whipped around, its entire body shuddering to a halt midair with one bright amethyst eye trained directly on Blake. Time seemed to stand still as their gazes locked.

Without warning, a fist busted through the Grimm dragon's left eye, exploding outwards all the way up to a shoulder.

A familiar arm reached outwards from the wreckage, bare fingers uncurling and outstretched.

* * *

><p>Jaune sat in a folding chair beside his red-haired partner, watching Ren and Nora for any sign of movement. The two seemed peaceful, Nora lying pretty much on top of Ren, her face nuzzled into the crook of his neck. Ren's breathing was deep and even, his eyes closed. His forcefield was still intact.<p>

Professor Port watched over them as well, his axe/gun combo in hand. That didn't sit well with Jaune exactly, but if Ren turned into a Grimm, what else could they do? He fiddled with the cuff of his gloves.

"Hey, Pyrrha, do you think the others are doing okay?" he asked without looking at her.

Pyrrha glanced quickly at her downtrodden team leader before looking back at her teammates. When it came to matters of aura, Ren was second to none in terms of proficiency, and considering how well synced he already was with Nora, she had a good deal of faith that they would be all right despite the severity of his wound. Team RWBY on the other hand... Pyrrha's face reddened slightly as she pushed certain memories to the back of her mind.

There was no doubt they were... close, so being in sync with their partners was likely no problem. Still, Ruby's exposure to the toxin had been the longest by far, and from what she'd seen of Yang during combat practice, when the brawler began expending aura, she did it hard and fast - conditions that did not bode well for either sister. Pyrrha placed a tentative hand on Jaune's knee, trying to catch his eyes.

"Do you want to check on them?"

"Yeah," Jaune ran a hand through his hair, glancing at Ren and Nora. He kept his voice low, so as not to distract Professor Port. "But, I guess I'm worried these guys'll wake up, and I won't be here. I'm the team leader, you know?"

He was also the team strategist. The guy who saw what was going on and came up with a plan to deal with it.

Dark scenarios plagued him. What if Ren and Nora didn't wake up? What if one of them did, but the other didn't? What if the next time Ren opened his eyes, they were red? He didn't want to plan for that. He sighed, cradling his head in his hands, "I wish it had been me instead of Ren."

Pyrrha gripped Jaune's knee with a little too much force. "Don't say things like that," she said too quickly to keep the shake from her voice. The image of Jaune lying motionless on one of those beds sent a chill straight through to the normally calm warrior's heart. She shook her head and paused to breathe.

"Jaune," she started again, leaning her shoulder into his, "being a good team leader doesn't mean taking every hit for your teammates."

"I know," Jaune pushed back a little. He gave a half-hearted grin, "But I was just thinking that Ren would be scary as a Grimm. Actually, any of you would be scary as a Grimm. I'd probably be, like, a baby beowulf or something. Plus I still suck at aura usage, so it'd probably be easy for you to do that healing thing on me," He fell silent again. Maybe he shouldn't have been joking about this. Well, half-joking, anyway. He rubbed the back of his neck, "So do you think Weiss is okay? I heard she was crying in the laundry room earlier. She must be really torn up over Ruby, huh?"

Pyrrha's eyebrows rose at the news about Weiss. Poor girl. There was nothing worse than watching a loved one suffer. She opened her mouth to speak when flickering shadows caught her eye. Her gaze snapped to her two teammates, both still lying peacefully on the bed. Nothing seemed out of place. Pyrrha frowned. Perhaps she had only imagined it.

Just as she was about to look away, Ren's protective barrier of aura flickered again, pink this time. Unsure whether this was a good or bad sign, Pyrrha moved her hand from her Jaune's knee to grip his arm, eyes never leaving her teammates. "Jaune..."

"I saw it," Jaune rose, reaching to touch Ren's barrier. He cast Professor Port a glance. "What's going on?"

Silence plagued the room for a spell, broken only by a light static hissing accompanying each colorful flicker of the barrier underneath Jaune's fingers.

Finally, with a twitch of his bushy mustache, the professor replied, "I'm certain it's nothing a fine huntsman like myself cannot handle, dear boy."

Rising from her chair as well, Pyrrha winced internally at Professor Port's tone, lacking its usual warmth and gusto. She didn't miss the way the professor's fingers curled a bit tighter around his weapon, either.

Tearing her eyes away from the discreet promise of violence, Pyrrha's gaze returned to the peaceful faces of her teammates as she went to stand beside Jaune. A brief twitch of her fingers betrayed her nerves as she placed a comforting hand on the equally anxious blonde's shoulder.

Once again she caught those bright blue eyes, pausing as she tried to form words of encouragement through the weight of her own worry.

A distant explosion destroyed her concentration. Frantic cries of warning coming from outside tore her attention to the hall beyond their door.

The shadows of medical technicians fleeing past their room flashed by the small rectangular window above the door handle. Dread pooled in Pyrrha's stomach as she realized they were running away from Blake and Yang's end of the hall.

* * *

><p>Weiss gripped her wrist harder and stared back at Ruby, who was straining to push herself up. The lamppost pinning her to the bricks groaned, bending as it turned to rust and sifted away, allowing her to rise.<p>

Her red cloak fluttered around her slender frame, her one eye and the lines in the bone mask growing across her face burned the same shade of scarlet. She observed the heiress, apparently in no hurry.

Weiss stood rooted to the spot. A black stain crept past the edge of her fingers, working its way up her arm from the bite.

Poison. The same poison that was affecting Ruby.

Her wrist burned like it was on fire. Weiss hadn't realized the toxin would be so fast acting. She could have cursed her idiocy, or her bad luck, or any number of things, but Ruby was walking towards her and she needed to move.

Her legs refused to cooperate, though. She stumbled, turning and catching herself on her elbow in one of the sludge-tainted puddles.

Before she could get up, Ruby was shoving her onto her back, straddling her stomach. She planted one hand on Weiss's forehead and forced her to lie flat.

"No," Weiss snarled. She balled her fist and hit Ruby, twisted underneath her, but the other girl paid her no mind. "Get _off._"

Weiss's struggles were pitiful and she knew it. She'd read about this. About poisons that made you weak and mixed up your thinking. Dust, she'd read about some of them out loud to Ruby that evening back when the younger girl was just a sleepy, childish mess on pain killers and Weiss thought everything was fine. She lay still for a moment beneath her partner's weight, panting from exhaustion. The stark white light of the sunless sky filtered down around them through the shifting leaves.

The realization began to sink in: she and Ruby were going to turn into monsters and die. Ruby was already most of the way there. Weiss gripped her partner's wrist, attempting to remove her hand from her forehead. Black blood dripped on her face. The stain crept further up her arm, insidious.

"Ruby, let me go. Please," Weiss choked the words out. Her thoughts were already growing sluggish and confused, but she still knew that she didn't want this to happen. She didn't want to be a Grimm. She didn't want Ruby to be Grimm, but the bone mask had grown passed the bridge of the girl's nose and was continuing to form, beginning to frame her left eye.

Something warm dripped on Weiss's cheek and into her mouth. It wasn't blood this time. She tasted salt and saw the drops spill over the edge of the half-formed bone. Ruby's eyes flickered crimson as she continued to hold Weiss down, her gaze blank.

But she was crying.

Dust, Ruby was crying.

Something in Weiss rebelled. Not only was her partner turning into a Grimm—she was _crying_. It was too much. _Dust_.

Weiss tried to focus.

She couldn't give up.

She _couldn't._

_D__ust, Dust, Dust_ it was hard to think. She shut her eyes hard. Even if she wasn't weaponless and poisoned and fast losing the ability to see straight, she wasn't sure what she would do.

So she would just have to run with plan B.

Gathering up what small strength she had left, Weiss reached up and took hold of the lip of the mask growing over Ruby's face, getting her fingertips around the edge. The black had spread up to Weiss's knuckles and continued to work its way down her arm, its progress already obscured by her sleeve. How long did she have before she had her own mask? Minutes? An hour? Her aura was probably worthless against this by now.

Ruby didn't seem interested in what Weiss was doing; she only stared down at her, crimson eyes devoid of any expression. Weiss tried to take deep breaths. No rush to take her down now that she was infected- was that it? Time to kick back and watch her succumb to the poison?

"I always knew Grimm were stupid, but Ruby if you turn all the way, you might set a record," Weiss gritted out, her voice broken. With her good hand, she formed the shape of the glyph she thought might work. In any case, if it didn't it might still upset the Grimm in Ruby enough for her partner to kill her outright instead of waiting for her change. That was something at least.

Her hand shook. Everything around them was dying. The trees, the grass. Buildings were beginning to crumble. Maybe all this time, she should have been trying to put Ruby down. Maybe she had been too late from the start. It was no use thinking about that, though. Weiss set her teeth and triggered her glyph.

Her technique was sloppy. Disgraceful, really, but it would serve. She let the gold light fill her, choking on bile as the effects of her semblance reacted with the poison creeping up her arm. Despite that, strength flooded her, and she latched both hands onto Ruby's mask.

Ruby's face contorted in rage. She throttled Weiss in an attempt to stop the light.

The heiress saw stars as her oxygen was cut off, but she didn't need to breathe or see right now. She pushed with one hand and jerked with the other and between that calculated torque and her briefly augmented strength, the bone mask on Ruby's face snapped. Ruby threw herself backwards, howling and clutching her face, and black blood spilled across Weiss, spattering in the puddles of liquid leaves. The mask fell in two pieces, clattering on the brick.

The gold light burned out and Weiss levered herself onto her side. Her ears rang, maybe because of Ruby's agonized shrieks, maybe just because she'd been nearly strangled. She felt sick. She willed herself to not throw up as she lay shaking, coughing, gasping for air.

She could hear Ruby retching somewhere out of her line of sight. A horrible, wet sound in the empty lamppost forest. Had breaking off the mask killed her? It wasn't exactly a mercy-kill if it wasn't quick, but Weiss could still hope. She propped herself up partway with her good arm and saw her partner vomiting black liquid- it pooled among the disintegrating lampposts and tree branches, the darkness bulging, gathering like it was alive. Was it another enemy? Another attack from the Grimm rats they'd left behind so long ago?

If it was, Weiss didn't care. Her entire infected arm seared with pain. Her head felt like it would split in two.

She shut her eyes and lowered herself till her forehead touched the blood-slicked bricks. Let the Grimm rats do whatever they wanted. She was already dying. If something wanted to end the hopeless, poisoned remains of her sorry life a little sooner, all the better.

Worse came to worst, Ozpin was out there somewhere.

The headmaster wouldn't let her live as a Grimm for long.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I guess you could say Weiss and Ruby really <em>faced off<em> in this chapter. **

**HAHhahAHHA AHHAH **

**Fiercesomest is going to kill me for putting puns in the author's notes. Ah well. Until next week!**

**Hugs,**  
><strong>Defenestrator<strong>


	12. Through Rainfall and Fire

**A/N: Defenestrator, I'm not going to kill you- but I am going to PUNish you.**

**... yeah, that hurt to type. Read on, fearless readers.**

**- Fiercesomest**

* * *

><p>Weiss drifted in and out of consciousness. Her white combat gear was soaked with water, streaked with grime and blood.<p>

Ruby had fallen silent, wherever she was. Probably dead. The heiress tried to tell herself that the younger girl's death was a good thing.

For a handful of moments, she wished that she had let her partner finish strangling her. The thought was fleeting, though. After all, if she'd allowed herself to be killed, Ruby would have been stuck as a monster on her own. It was better this way, Weiss's vision blurred. She was used to being alone.

She closed her eyes. She was done. Spent. Aware of nothing but the fire in her arm as the poison crept towards her heart, or her brain, or wherever it needed to get to really take root. She couldn't lift her head, couldn't move, couldn't understand why she kept breathing. All she wanted was for this to end. Weiss let herself drift into a daze of pain and sickness, her consciousness fading again.

* * *

><p>Something touched her shoulder. Weiss became aware of it by degrees. She wasn't sure how long she had been out. A distant voice was talking to her, like someone speaking to her underwater. Like she was at the bottom of the sea, too exhausted to really listen.<p>

As abruptly as if someone had grabbed her by the collar and dragged her to the surface, she woke.

She sucked a breath in through her teeth and found herself on her side, staring at a puddle of muddy red fabric.

"Come on," a voice said. Weiss felt a pressure on her hand and looked up to see Ruby, leaning over her. The girl's eyes were like quicksilver, anxious and bright; her face streaked with dirt and black. Half of it was red and raw, like it had been scrubbed with sandpaper. Her brows were knit with concentration. As soon as she saw that Weiss had opened her eyes, the look broke and she brushed the heiress's white bangs out of her face.

"Hey, Weiss," she greeted her, voice gentle.

Weiss blinked slowly this time, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. Birds flitted among the trees behind her partner, and a bright sun cast dappled patterns across her red cloak. Surprisingly vivid for a dream, which this most certainly was. She remained passive, waiting for it to turn sour as her dreams often did.

Ruby didn't say anything else, but Weiss felt her squeeze her bitten hand. The younger girl's hand was warm. Their fingers were intertwined.

"No," Weiss mustered her energy, trying to pull away. She didn't know if she would still turn Grimm in a dream or not. "You have to go- I... I can't..."

"Wait, it's okay. You're fine, see?" Ruby gripped her hand harder and lifted it up.

Weiss stared, confused. The skin of her bitten hand was pale, unblemished but for the shadow of the bite mark at her wrist. Her eyes drifted from her bare arm to her partner. She swallowed several times, mumbling thickly, "Ruby, you're dead."

"Uh... that's news to me," she grinned that stupid grin. That beautiful grin. And she laughed a little, helping the heiress sit up.

Weiss tried to focus. This was a dream. It was a dream, and any second now she'd wake up and Ruby would be gone and she would be wearing a mask. Or she would really wake up, back at Beacon, as a Grimm, and... and...

"Weiss," Ruby interrupted her thoughts, silver eyes earnest, "Relax. It's okay."

"It's not. This is... Ruby..." Weiss lifted her free hand, as if to touch her partner's face. Her ice blue eyes traced the faded lines that had once glowed Grimm-red. They looked like they hurt, badly. "I'm so sorry."

"What, this?" Ruby motioned to the angry patch of raw skin across her right cheek and eye, grimacing a little, "Well, it kind of stings, but that mask was keeping my aura from working on all that black junk. Besides, it's not deep," she dipped her head, trying to catch Weiss's eyes with her own, "Hey. Hey, what's wrong?"

Weiss had closed a fist in Ruby's cloak, trying to anchor herself. The crimson fabric looked real. It felt real, still wet from when Ruby had sprawled on the brick after the rain of leaves. It smelled real, like dirt and sweat and rose petals.

Somehow she ended up with her face hidden in Ruby's shoulder- she wasn't sure how, exactly, but she held on, shutting her eyes, willing herself to wake up if this was a dream because if it was she wanted it to end before it got to be too much for her to bear. Her other hand gripped Ruby's, desperate for this to be real.

After a while, Ruby put her free arm around her, her voice small, "Are you still hurt? I can try that healing thing again if you want. I mean, I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing before so if it didn't work just tell me, okay?"

"You dolt," Weiss choked, gripping her harder. She'd tried aura healing without really knowing how? She was an idiot. You couldn't dream up someone who was such an idiot. "I can't believe you did that. I can't believe you. The toxin could have- You're so-" she stalled and tried again, "You're such a complete dunce. Do you have any idea how scared I was?"

"But you're okay now?"

"I hate you so much," the words were muffled in Ruby's cloak.

Relieved, the scythe-wielder rested her dark head against the heiress's snowy white one, chuckling into her hair, "I love you too, Weiss."

"Don't say that," Weiss drew back a little, scrubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. She fought a smirk and lost, "Really. Half of Beacon already has us engaged."

Ruby blinked. "Engaged as in getting married?"

"Well, maybe the rumors said 'dating'. Who cares," Weiss generally did, but not right now. Ruby's grin was contagious. So right now, for these few precious seconds, she and her partner sat in the forest, soaking wet and giggling like kids.

* * *

><p>With Ruby's aura restored, the wilted and damaged trees nearby grew strong and green again. Even the lampposts sprouted, growing tiny splints of steel and glass from their severed stumps.<p>

The darkness was gathering, though. All of the traces in the water, all the oozing slashes in buildings. It crept together, solidifying just beyond the treeline.

This pool of toxin, this essence of the Grimm that had spawned out of the Rat King's very flesh existed to snuff out humanity's light. Mindless as it was, it sensed that now was the time to strike, while the two huntresses-in-training were exhausted and weak. It rose, black and thick like tar- a formless remnant of some forgotten nightmare. Sludge dripped from jaws sporting jagged teeth; red eyes surfaced, unblinking in the shifting mass of blackness.

The world came to it in an indistinct wash. It saw in shades of crimson that pulsed with that particular brand of human light it so abhorred. The sources of this light were small, together just ahead through the twisted stalks of iron.

The creature of Grimm, the dregs of concentrated poison, seethed, stretching its body out and over them. A wave of darkness, heavy as night, silent as death. It would suffocate them both.

Then one of the humans looked up.

"Ruby, what-" Weiss started when her partner lunged past her.

Crescent Rose appeared in Ruby's grip, flashing through the air.

The razor sharp blade and candy-apple steel parted the wave of darkness that had, sending it crashing to either side of the two like angry waters from a black sea.

Ruby's eyes were hard as she watched it seethe and roil across the bricks, gathering itself. She turned, speaking to Weiss over her shoulder, "Up for one more fight?"

The heiress gaped at Crescent Rose, "How-!?"

Ruby looked down at her scythe in surprise, as if she hadn't realized that her weapon had just materialized out of thin air. "Um."

"Nevermind," the heiress put her arm back through the sleeve of her bolero. The two partners were filthy, streaked with street grime, their hair a sopping, mess. Ruby's stuck out everywhere. Weiss's clung to her clothes. She rose to one knee and straightened her collar as the toxin surged its way around them. "Let's just take care of this and go home."

"Roger that," Ruby chambered a round, taking in the position and movements of their liquid enemy as it swarmed over the fallen logs and iron posts, collecting itself into a semi-solid form near the edge of the demolished patch of forest. The red eyes resurfaced.

Weiss braced herself and stood shakily as the black creature swelled in size, "So what's the plan?"

"Can you do that gold-glowy thing to me?" The Grimm poison sprouted limbs and claws. Its torso- or what could have passed for a torso- split down the center, parting in a full-body grin. Ruby lowered her center of balance and brought Crescent Rose around, holding the scythe low on her right, "I want to try something."

"'Trying something' doesn't count as a plan," Weiss readied the glyph, envying her partner's stance, her rock-steady grip on her scythe. The way the sun caught in her dark hair, highlighting streaks of red, spilled across her cloak, vibrant, alive—it was as if the surroundings themselves were lending her strength.

"It is too a plan." Ruby whined, unconscious of the power she was drawing. Her eyes never left the black maw opening before her. She gripped Crescent Rose a little harder. "... on the off chance it doesn't work, you can have Crescent Rose. I told you that before, kind of, I think"

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "Ruby, if this doesn't work, I'll be dead too."

"Oh yeah." Ruby's cape billowed out behind her as Weiss's glyph sprung up beneath her feet. Her eyes reflected the white-gold glow of her partner's focused semblance, "Well, it's the thought that counts, right?"

Weiss gave a short derisive laugh as the rush of energy from her semblance drained out of her. She caught herself on the brick as her knees buckled.

Her partner's cloak shimmered before her eyes, her rose petals almost white with the energy from Weiss's semblance. Crescent Rose shone like a piece of the sun, its blade suddenly broader than it had been; wider, too, and doubled in length.

How was Ruby still able to lift it? It was bigger than she was. Physically impossible, even with Weiss's glyph backing her leader's natural strength.

The black and red of the Grimm had gathered into a malignant mass as tall as the windowless buildings. It kept sprouting mouths and limbs and eyes. The trees around it withered, dying, showering the two huntresses-in-training with water like heavy rain.

Weiss braced her hands against the brick. If she had Myrtenaster maybe she could help... maybe she could do something... something...

Her vision faded to white as her partner kicked off the ground to meet the Grimm monster as it crashed down over them in a torrent of jagged teeth and claws.

* * *

><p>Quiet. Then the soft whirrs and chirps of medical apparatus. The lights were low.<p>

With a great effort, Weiss lifted her head from the paper-covered examination table. She was still clutching Ruby's hand with both of hers. Her partner lay full-length, breathing deep in sleep.

Headmaster Ozpin stood over Ruby, eyes hard. His hand hovered a few inches from her temple, fingers rigid, perhaps in preparation to utilize his semblance- perhaps as an efficient means of dispatching a student gone Grimm.

"No!" Weiss's folding chair clanged on the tile as she abandoned it, ducking over her partner, shielding the girl's head and shoulders, "She's... she's okay."

Ozpin withdrew his hand. He was silent for a moment, observing his student. She shook with fatigue as she protected her young partner.

"Welcome back, Miss Schnee," he greeted her then, gently. He placed both hands on top of his cane, withdrawing all threat of action, "I gather you were successful."

Weiss kept her forehead ducked against Ruby's sweat-plastered hair while the small room deep in the special-cases ward spun.

"I..." she started. What had happened? What kind of world had that been, full of liquid leaves and a sprawling, empty city. She tried to remember what happened after the... the poison? had turned into a monster and attacked them.

Had Ruby won?

Ruby had to have won. But then why wasn't she awake? Weiss shut her eyes, willing the room to stay still.

At that point, Ruby stirred. She gave a small groan, almost a whimper, and Weiss sat up quickly, checking her for fever even though she was being monitored by at least five different machines.

When Ruby blinked her eyes open, they were a bleary silver.

"Mmnng," she said.

Weiss sank, sliding till her knees hit the floor. She crossed her arms and put her head down on the edge of the examination table.

"Hey," Ruby's hand touched her hair, her words were slurred. "You okay?"

"Shut up," Weiss's voice trembled. A distant sound, like thunder, shook the room. The heiress lifted her head again, scowling, "What was that?"

Ozpin closed his scroll and looked up at the rush of doctors and nurses passing the window to their current position. He spoke gravely, "I'm afraid your teammates may be encountering some difficulty."

* * *

><p>Blake moved on instinct, dropping her pipe and descending with rushed fervor to grasp the searching hand in both of her own, bracing her feet below the cracked leaking bone of the Grimm's fractured eye socket. The hand gripped her for dear life and she pulled with all her might, holding fast even as the Grimm dragon began to thrash anew.<p>

Each twist and jerk nearly sent her flying, but Blake refused to let go.

"Yang," she growled, her entire body quaking with effort, "_Keep. Fighting._"

In complete opposition to her request, the hand released her, pulling back slightly.

Blake practically snarled in worry. "_No._ What are you-"

_CRACK_

A hairline fracture appeared just above the wrecked eye socket, eliciting a new wave of agonized screeching from the Grimm dragon, deafening in such close proximity. Vehemently ignoring the ringing in her ears, Blake threw all of her weight in to one more full-bodied pull.

The left side of the Grimm dragon's bone mask exploded in a shower of red and white fragments, another fist driving straight through, followed by Yang herself. The wild-eyed brawler latched on to her startled partner as they tumbled through the air and crashed unceremoniously into the side of the mountain, inches from one of the cave openings. Blake struggled to sit up first, hearing Yang groan beside her.

Guttural howls of fury and pain ripped from the half-shattered face of the Grimm dragon currently spiraling towards them, its mouth hanging open. Though, whether it was charging them or simply falling, Blake couldn't tell. Just as her partner began to rise, Blake's Faunus ears picked up the telltale crackling of sparks, invisible from this distance.

Blake gripped Yang's arm, whispering harshly. "The caves."

With a quick nod from Yang, the pair bolted, stumbling their way into the relative safety of the glowing stone walls just as waves of black fire rushed past the opening. A resounding _CRASH_ knocked them both to the ground as the dragon smashed headlong into the mountainside right above the cave's entrance. Rocks and debris crumbled around them, plunging the area into darkness as their only exit disappeared in a smoldering pile of blackened rubble.

Silence descended upon the cave. Mutually exhausted, neither of them moved from the ground for a full minute.

It was Blake who stirred first, pushing herself up onto her elbows and twisting around to prop herself up against a frighteningly large chunk of ceiling sitting right beside her. She opened her mouth to call to her partner, but instead broke the silence with a sudden volley of violent coughs.

The sharp bursts of sound roused Yang, a long low moan emanating from the brawler as she rolled over to face the direction of the coughs just as they ceased. She blindly stretched an arm out.

"Blake?"

"Over here."

Yang dragged herself over towards the sound of her partner's voice, eyes finally starting to adjust to the gently diffused light afforded by the glowing rocks around them. She plopped herself down right next to Blake, offering her a winning. albeit tired, smile.

"Hey."

"...Hey." An intense stare accompanied Blake's easy reply.

Yang blinked at the shining amber eyes boring into her own, one golden eyebrow arching as Blake's heated gaze slowly swept over her entire body, methodically inspecting every inch. A smirk crawled across the brawler's face.

"Like what you see?"

Blake could see no traces of the strange, oily-black invasive substance anywhere on the cheeky brawler. Yang was OK. She was right here, and she was fine. Blake offered the smirking blonde a small smirk of her own.

"Yes."

"…..wh-?" Yang spluttered, quickly mumbling something about being unable to see very well as she called upon her semblance, essentially setting herself on fire to hide the blush creeping up her neck. That was not the response she'd been expecting. The burning blonde's face fell when the bright light of her flames afforded her a better look at her partner. Cuts, scratches, bruises, burns - and was that a _puncture wound _in her side?

Tentative fingers reached out to touch Blake's hand. "Wow, I... I really did a number on you huh?" Yang's voice cracked with guilt. She managed a half-hearted grin. "Sorry for... _drag'n_ you around out there."

Blake's smirk vanished, and for a moment, she simply stared. Yang watched in horror as those bright amber eyes, still locked on her own, began to mist over. She grasped her partner's arms and squeezed.

"Blake, I'm sorry, you probably don't want to hear jokes right now and-" Blake's arms slid from her grasp, suddenly wrapping around her and forcefully pulling the startled brawler into a close embrace. Yang's own arms hung frozen in the air, shocked into motionlessness for a second. Blake almost _never _initiated hugs.

Guilt stabbed the brawler in the chest as her partner's shoulders began to shake, the motion finally spurring her into movement herself as she squeezed back with all her might.

Just as she was about to apologize again, she heard a very distinct sound.

Laughter.

Blake was _laughing._

The heartwarming tone occasionally mixed with sobs - Yang could feel wetness on her back and shoulder - but Blake was _laughing _nonetheless.

A huge smile split Yang's face. "So... are those tears of joy, or are my jokes just that bad?"

After a few moments, Blake finally pulled back, briefly wiping her eyes as she quietly regarded the grinning blonde before her.

That grin faltered as Blake slowly leaned forward, gently rubbing her tear-streaked face against her partner's cheek before pulling back again with a small smile of her own.

"I'll let you decide."

Yang stared, wide-eyed and motionless until something finally clicked. Her grin returned full-force, brighter even than her own semblance. "Tears of joy it is," she laughed, throwing an arm around her partner.

The pair smiled at each other, once Blake was finished rolling her eyes anyway.

"Hey Blake," Yang spoke softly, barely meeting her partner's eyes in a sidelong glance.

"Yes?"

"Would it be all right if I-"

An ear-splitting roar drowned out the brawler's request. Two pairs of eyes turned to the haphazard jumble of stone blocking the cave entrance. Flickers of black flame wriggled through the cracks in the rocks - the display backed by the sounds of angry thrashing and scratching coming from the outside.

In unspoken synchronization, the pair stood, Yang flexing her fists as Blake quickly took stock of their surroundings with her superior darkvision. There wasn't much to see other than a dead end and a single branching path leading off to the right.

Yang punched her fists together, sincerely wishing she were in proper combat attire, rather than pajamas. "So, I'm thinking we need to kill that thing."

Blake nodded, motioning for Yang to follow as she headed towards the branching path. "Yes, but first we need to g-hhgk" her words caught in her throat, overtaken by a sudden coughing spat. Hands grasping a stalagmite for support, Blake felt something slick and oily churning in her lungs as she coughed, her chest heaving with each breath.

Yang was at her partner's side in an instant, pressing a hand to her back. "Blake, _woah,_ are you alright? You sound like you just chain-smoked an entire box of cigars."

"I'm. Fine-" the shaking Faunus replied, her words halting, forced out through a brief respite in-between coughs.

It was an incredibly unconvincing lie. Yang threw an incredulous look at the girl currently trying to hack up her lungs. "You don't _sound _fine."

"It-" one last violent cough wrenched itself from Blake's chest before the fit finally began to subside. She brushed Yang's hand from her back and stepped away. "It's probably just smoke inhalation from all those black flames."

For a brief instant Blake swore she saw a flicker of dread darken the amethyst eyes currently trained on her, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

Yang extended a hand towards her partner. "Blake. Let me do that aura healing thing on you."

Blake shook her head, brows furrowing in confusion at her partner's dead-serious tone. "No, save it. We're going to need everything we have to kill that thing out there," she pointed to the cave-in as she spoke, the pile of rocks shifting slightly as the muffled sounds of enraged thrashing and snarling outside grew more frantic.

"No, really, come here right now," the brawler insisted, advancing on her partner with outstretched arms. "It's not going to take _that _much aura to punch a Grimm in the face," she added with a smile.

Blake stepped back, silently declining the embrace she was being offered. "Yang, no, we're going to need some kind of plan a bit more detailed than 'punch it to death'."

Yang rolled her eyes, torn between smiling and stamping her foot in frustration. "What is it with you guys and _plans._ Just. Come. _Here_-"

Blake dodged the hands that swiped out to grab her with another quick step backwards. "Yang listen to me. That Grimm has ranged attacks. We do not. In fact, we don't have anything at all. Even if we get up close and personal we have no weapons outside of your bare fists and maybe a jagged pipe or something."

A particularly large _CRASH _shook the ground under their feet as the pile of rocks forming the cave in began to shift more easily. Blake sent a quick glower at the cave entrance, edging away from it and towards the lone branching path behind them. "And judging by how energetically it's trying to get in here, stabbing it doesn't seem to do much other than make it angry."

Yang opened her mouth to argue further, but she never got the chance. Another resounding _CRASH _sent rocks and debris flying past them, dragging two pairs of eyes to the cave entrance, now partially open again thanks to the Grimm dragon's head and part of its hulking frame trying to push through. Its body was slightly too big for the small tunnel, but the beast forced itself farther inside anyway.

Black sparks began to fly from its mouth.

With one split second glance at each other, the pair bolted, diving into the branching path just as the tunnel behind them exploded into black flames. Yang was on her feet in an instant, naturally slipping into a fighting stance as she eyed the smoldering ground they had been standing on moments earlier.

"OK, yeah, that fire breath is a real problem." Beside her, Blake shook her head to clear it a bit, placing a hand to her head. Her eyes landed on the long ribbon around her arm.

A slightly ridiculous idea came to her.

Blake tried to get to her feet. "I think I have an idea-" her throat caught on the final vowel and she halted, sinking to her knees in another coughing fit.

Not many things could pull Yang away from a fight, but the sight of her partner on the ground, shaking and heaving was certainly one of them. She dropped her stance in an instant, kneeling at Blake's side and reaching out to pull her partner's hand away from her face after a particularly violent cough. Dread pooled in her gut - Blake's hands and mouth were streaked with shimmering black.

Blake tried to push her away. "I'm ok," she insisted, wiping her face with the back of her free hand and forcing herself to her feet as the coughing subsided once more.

Yang rose with her, trying to focus on sending healing through to the blackened hand in her own even as the walls around them shook with tremors from the Grimm dragon squeezing its way towards their tunnel. "No. No you are _not ok._"

Blake pulled her hand away, quickly unwrapping the ribbon from her arm as the sounds of their oversized pursuer drew nearer. "Worry about it later. Right now, I need you to do me a favor."

The brawler hesitated, eyes darting back and forth between Blake and the still-smoking path behind them, ringing with the sounds of a very large, very angry Grimm coming closer by the second. They were running out of time. Finally, she nodded. "Anything."

Blake gripped her ribbon. "As soon as that Grimm rounds the corner," her lips quirked in a small smirk, "punch it in the face."

Amethyst eyes blinked in surprise for only a second before Yang's face broke into a lopsided grin. "Consider it done!" She turned and fell back into her fighting stance, ready and waiting. "Do you have any preferences? I have an entire _repertoire _of punches you know."

Beside her, Blake stood at ready as well, ears zeroed in on the scratching and grinding of bone against rock, almost right around the corner now. "Yes, actually. An uppercut should do nicely."

"Roger that!"

Pebbles and dust fell from above as the tip of a nose peeked out from around the corner. With another lurching twist, the Grimm's head followed by its long neck finally came into view as it yanked itself forward, the jumble of bones that comprised its body grinding into the surrounding stone. It snaked its half-shattered head around the corner.

The Grimm snarled, jaws parting as sparks began to fly. That snarl was cut short as Yang shot forward, leaping straight up into a flying uppercut. The dragon's teeth snapped back together with a resounding _clack _matched in force and sound only by its head smashing up into the ceiling. Blake sprang forward next, darting around the Grimm dragon's snout as it fell back down, wrapping it shut with her ribbon and tying it securely in a flash. Together the pair jumped back, ready and waiting.

Startled and dazed by the sudden onslaught, the muzzled beast whipped its head from side to side, trying to shake off the ribbon holding its mouth shut. A low hiss of frustration seeped through its smoking teeth. The ribbon wouldn't budge. With a furious growl the Grimm dragon retreated, its sheer size giving it no room to properly turn around, resulting in awkward backwards scuttle that was much swifter than seemed possible.

Blake ran after it, Yang close behind. "We have to attack it while it's disarmed. We can't give it a chance to claw my ribbon off of its face."

Yang's eyes flicked from her partner's hands, streaked with black that was beginning to crawl up her arms, over to the Grimm dragon bursting out of the cave entrance and snaking away into the sky. Even with Professor Goodwitch's crash course, she didn't really know how this dream world stuff worked, but it stood to reason that even if she helped Blake now, if that dragon blasted them with flames again it would all be for nothing. It wasn't ideal, but it made sense. Relatively assured by her logic, she nodded. "All right."

Blake watched her partner sprint past her out of the cave in a burst of speed, leaping straight into the fray of pipes beyond, hot in pursuit of the Grimm fleeing only a few feet ahead.

"HEY DRAGON," the brawler shouted, grinning ear to ear. Blake knew that smile. She knew what was coming. "I've got a _bone _to pick with you!"

Blake rolled her eyes and followed close behind with a smirk, pointedly ignoring the heated pain creeping down her spine.

* * *

><p>Jaune paled. "Pyrrha, quick, go to the far side of Ren's forcefield."<p>

Lacking an actual weapon, he grabbed a folding chair, brandishing it like a lion tamer might as he crept to the door to peer through the glass and get an idea of what was going on.

Pyrrha ignored her team leader's command, her desire to stand beside him and fight overriding all else as she went to look through the door with him. Her eyes widened at the sight before her. She threw the door open, stepping into the hallway to get a better view of Professor Goodwitch, holding a bright purple barrier in place, the only obstacle between them and a wild wall of flames pushing to get past the professor's defenses.

"Professor Goodwitch! What's going on?"

Glynda's eyes remained locked on her barrier, maintaining focus as she replied. "Miss Nikos, if the medical staff hasn't already, please do me a favor and fetch Professor Ozpin." She widened her stance as the flames tried to push through the corners of the hall where her circling rings didn't sit flush with the surrounding walls. "We may need to evacuate... again."

"Right, we can do that," Jaune gulped, dropping his chair against the hall wall. He tried not to imagine what had happened to Yang and Blake as he sprinted to find the headmaster, Pyrrha right behind him.

The door to the room Ruby and Weiss had been situated in opened before his hand touched the knob, revealing Ozpin himself.

"Headmaster! Professor Goodwitch needs you, and we might be evacuating," Jaune flailed his arm towards the inferno at the end of the hall. "Uh... as in I think we're definitely evacuating."

Ozpin leaned around the doorframe to see, his sharp eyes taking in the situation at a glance.

"Admirable timing, Mr. Arc, Miss Nikos. Would you escort these two upstairs?" He indicated the prone Ruby and semi-collapsed Weiss with a nod as he brushed passed the young man and began the long walk down the hall towards what looked very much like a doorway to the surface of the sun, held shut only by virtue of Glynda's expertise.

He supposed that he should talk to his staff about evacuating while students were still in the wards, but the possibility of being roasted alive wasn't exactly a prospect they faced on a regular basis, so he would be lenient. Or simply pen a memo to Glynda. Hm. Now there was an idea.

With the professor out of the room, Pyrrha smiled gently at the pair resting on the far side of the room, both of whom seemed very much alive and well. "Jaune," she spoke quietly, eyes darting back down the hall after the headmaster, "one of us should stay with Ren and Nora."

"Right. I'm on it," Jaune stumbled into a run back down the hall, following Ozpin without waiting for an answer.

Ruby struggled to prop herself up on her elbows, rubbing her eyes.

Weiss had given up trying to stand and just knelt with her head down, breathing hard and trying not to pass out.

Pyrrha strode over to the first half of team RWBY. One look at Weiss was all it took to know she would have to carry her. "Ruby, do you think you can walk? You can lean on me for support if you need to," her eyes darted to the door and back, "but we'll need to move with alacrity. Professor Goodwitch is currently blocking a great inferno from consuming the area."

"Inferno?" the young scythe-wielder looked up from her partner, "Inferno as in Yang?"

Pyrrha nodded.

Ruby's eyes widened and she sat up, more by virtue of willpower than actual strength to do so, "I have to go down there- maybe I can help."

"Ruby, just..." Weiss was out. Finished. Done. She searched for words and came up empty, so she finished in an unintelligible you're-so-stupid-just-let-someone-else-deal-with-it sort of growl.

Pyrrha knelt down to pick up the exhausted heiress, gently hefting her up bridal style.

The white-haired girl made a weak sound of protest at being lifted off the ground, but was too wiped out with fatigue to do anything more than shut her eyes and rest her head against Pyrrha's shoulder.

Ruby edged herself off the examination table in her pajamas and bare feet. The room tilted and she had to catch herself. She had a sour taste in her mouth like she'd been throwing up.

Yang was her big sister, though, and if her big sister was in trouble, Ruby was either going to fix it or join her in the middle of it.

Pyrrha fixed a cautious gaze on team RWBY's leader. The young girl was known for her determination - unparalleled when it came to helping others. "Ruby, I won't stop you from doing what you feel is right," she said, pausing as she thought back on the literal wall of flames, barely being held back by one of the school's most powerful huntresses. "Just… be careful, for your own sake," her gaze flicked down to Weiss and back, "and for the sake of your loved ones," she finished with a soft smile.

"Right," the dark-haired girl noted Pyrrha's glance and gave the red-head a grin, promptly losing her balance and almost toppling over. She caught herself on the edge of the examination table, "Whoa, there's the floor. Okay. You go upstairs. I'll catch up if things are too bad."

Pyrrha nodded, watching closely as Ruby somehow stumbled her way out the door without falling on her face. "You certainly picked a winner, Weiss," she said warmly, beaming down at the listless girl in her arms as she headed for the door herself.

Weiss rallied at Pyrrha's words, closing her fists on the lapels of the warrior's school jacket, pushing with one hand and pulling with the other in an attempt to strangle her.

Green eyes blinked at the sudden contact, mistaking the gesture of murderous intent for one of seeking reassurance. Pyrrha wasn't normally one to offer hugs, but she would always oblige when requested - even silent requests such as these. As such, she gently crushed Weiss to her chest, offering her an encouraging smile as she stepped into the overheated hall and began to head towards the elevator.

She spoke freely, offering the tired heiress whatever words of comfort came to mind. "Don't worry, you have an incredibly capable team that cares for you, and a team leader who obviously loves you very much. There's no way they'll leave you behind. They'll be all right." She glanced down the hall at the blinding inferno behind them as she nudged the button to the elevator, desperately hoping her reassurances wouldn't end up as hollow lies.

* * *

><p>"<em>H…e…l…p…"<em>

That word, whispered through the raging storm, was enough for Nora. She grinned, "Coming right up!"

Ren had said- or indicated. Whatever- that the dark tree was the source of the problem. So she'd start there and get to his shadow-dream-self in a minute.

With a running leap, she sailed through the air, hailstones pinging off her shield as she closed the distance between herself and the monster tree trunk. Halfway there, she brought Magnhild around in a majestic swing fit to flatten a mountain. Well, if Magnhild had been bigger, it would have flattened a mountain anyway. As it was, she just wanted to see about making a dent in this tree.

Just as Magnhild neared the twisted black bark, Ren's shadowy figure appeared directly in the way, head lowered and arm out, blocking the full force of the swing with an explosive red barrier of aura. The world around them darkened further as he slowly lifted his head.

For a brief moment, he looked completely normal. Then he spoke. A growling, unearthly voice rumbled up through his chest.

"_Nora..._"

His face split, literally, ear-to-ear in a toothy smile.

Nora's eyes went wide as she skidded back on the choppy surface of the lake. Lightning flashed overhead as the storm raged. She brought her silver hammer around for another swing. "You're not helping, Dream-Ren."

_"You're... not... helping..." _

The low reply drifted languidly in the air, clear and unhindered in the slightest by the din of the storm raging all around. Expression neutral once more, Ren's shadowy figure stepped forward, posture loose, calming advancing on the hammer wielder in his sights.

"You're not helping me not helping," Nora countered, bringing Magnhild up in a high arc and slamming it down on the surface of the lake, creating a blinding shockwave of broken glass to add to the rain and hail pouring down from overhead. Following the shower of glass, she attempted dive past her partner and get to the source of all this un-fun-ness. Namely the massive, oozing tree, which she was _so _going to blow to smithereens.

Unprepared for the sudden onslaught of glass, Ren's shadowy figure growled as a flash of pink sped by him. He sank into the water, emerging directly in front of the tree, arms outstretched, fingers pointed at Nora's charging form. Something flashed behind his eyes.

Whatever he tried to say was drowned out by a deafening peal of thunder as lighting shot from the sky, headed directly for Magnhild.

There wasn't time to see it. Of course there wasn't- it was lightning for Dust's sake- and it hit Magnhild with a blinding flash that started green and ended pink.

Nora surged forward, her insignia, the hammer and bolt of lightning embroidered across the back of her vest, blazing like a star. Silly Shadow-Ren. The red-head grinned. This was her element. Her feet barely touched the ground; her weapon shone in her hand.

"Take _this!_" Electricity ripped across the war hammer's surface as she swung for the base of the tree.

The shadowy figure was there in an instant, standing directly in the hammer's path and throwing up a barrier just as Magnhild approached. The barrier shattered, Magnhild delivering the full force of its blow directly into the surprisingly solid shadowy figure standing in its way. In a blinding flash of light, it pushed through the shadowy figure, knocking a second, far less shadowy Ren clear off into the distance.

Stripped of its hostage, Shadow-Ren toppled to the ground. The water below began to churn as a low keening hiss emanated from the now far less solid figure kneeling in front the gnarled tree from whence it came. All at once, a legion of countless shadowy copies of Ren emerged from the water, their glowing red eyes trained directly on Nora from all around.

Nora skipped back from the tree to get a better go at it. She tapped her dreamscape-strength, her aura bold and shining amid the bleakness of the lake.

The hammer-wielder was a cannon. A freight train. _A force of nature. _Ren possessed many skills, among which was his ability to direct (or more often redirect) Nora's focus.

Shadow-Ren did not possess this ability.

"Hey everybody!" she greeted the shades, "Want to watch?" The glass shield on Nora's arm crumbled away, leaving her unhindered as she sprang at the tree with tenacious furor. It was going _down_.

Each and every one of the dark flickering copies hissed, their swirling faces splitting into sharp-toothed ear-to-ear grimaces as they moved in unison, converging around the tree and springing up to meet the persistent assailant headed their way. At the same time, the tree itself jerked and shuddered in a futile effort to twist out of the way, straining against the roots it had buried deep within the reflection of the lake.

If the tree thought it was going to up and walk away from Nora Valkyrie, it was sorely mistaken. The toothy shades converging on its cracked and oozing visage did nothing to dim the manic light in Nora's eyes as she whooped and fired her hammer into a devastating sweep- hailstones were pulverized, the Shadow-Rens it encountered dissolved into a thin vapor, and finally, with a resounding _CRACK_, the tree itself took a blow that shivered its very splinters.

But the tree still stood. Albeit with a very large Magnhild-shaped dent in its trunk.

Nora took the impact all the way through her arms, into her entire body, and dropped back, hands smarting.

"Yowch," she re-settled her grip and poked the end of her tongue out of her mouth, considering the task before her, "Tougher than you look."

The tree shuddered and twisted in on itself, emitting a low rumble halfway between a growl and rolling thunder. The deep vibration rippled through the air, freezing each of the swirling flickering red-eyed figures in place.

In the blink of an eye, they melted down to shadow in unison, sweeping along the ground and back up into the tree from whence they came, covering it in a slick shimmering coat of black. The low rumble returned, shifting in pitch and tone until it formed into barely coherent words.

"_Tougher... than... _you."

Oily black tendrils shot from the base of the tree en masse, gunning for Nora's arms and legs.

Nora pulled back, throwing up Magnhild as a shield, only to get it entangled with the black roots as well.

"Rrrrrg," she growled, wrestling to get it and her legs free. Her aura burned bright and hot, resisting the close contact with the enemy.

High pitched keening filled the air, almost as if the dark tethers dragging Nora high up overhead were cheering at their apparent victory. The shimmering tree they connected to twisted and quivered beneath her, unable work its infection through its new captive's robust defenses, but perfectly content to slowly drain the abundant aura positively radiating from the super-energized hammer wielder. Slowly but surely, fueled by this new source of energy, the tree began to pull its roots free from the lake's reflection.

"Whoa!" the roots twisted Nora so she was upside down, hanging onto Magnhild as the blood rushed to her head. She could feel the massive plant leeching at her aura as it pulled its thousand tendrils free of the lake, but she just laughed and started in with her not-yet-patented super-secret sloth call.

It was faint, distant, but a response call drifted down from above. Seconds later, a volley of shots ripped through the tendrils holding Nora in place, sending them recoiling back into the base of the tree. Ren dropped from the sky, flipping Nora around to her feet so that they landed together, side by side. He calmly reloaded StormFlower as the tree shuddered and pulled the last of its roots free of the lake's reflection.

A bright white and red bone-plated head emerged from the trunk underneath the writhing branches as the roots quickly twisted around forming a hideous makeshift body of obsidian wood. It slowly rose up, a dark mockery of a stately stag, and hissed.

Ren ignored it, and instead turned to Nora. "You can walk on those," he motioned upwards to the clouds above.

Nora tipped her head back so far she bumped her head into Ren's shoulder. She was also ignoring the enormous Grimm tree stag creature rearing up over them. "When did we get clouds? Wasn't it all just mist and junk before?"

A hint of a smile pulled at Ren's features. "I figured we could use the high ground," he replied, glancing up at the towering Grimm. In one swift motion he quickly stowed StormFlower in his sleeves and offered his hands to his partner. "Let's move."

Nora motioned with her index finger, "I like the way you think, mister." Then, gripping Magnhild, she jumped, turning and planting her feet on his open palms, "One rain of pain coming up!"

Ren smiled, launching Nora up into his clouds with every bit of force he could muster. One more swift movement and he had StormFlower back at the ready, firing up at the red eyes that had locked onto Nora during her ascent. The Grimm stag snorted, slowly lifting an enormous foot to stamp at the green one shooting it in the face, but the small creature was too quick.

The Grimm lowered its head, its long vine-like horns following closely as Ren darted between its legs, firing two full clips into those angry red eyes all the while. He would do whatever it took to draw the Grimm's attention away from the much larger threat looming above - his powerhouse of a partner, currently ensconced inside clouds riddled with lightning.

He needn't have worried about distracting the Grimm stag at all, of course. It was doomed the moment he rejoined his partner. More accurately, the very moment the toxin invaded his dreamscape had spelled out its annihilation.

And now that annihilation came, flashing down from the semi-solid clouds overhead in a jagged streak of white-hot pink. All capital letters.

_CRACK!_

The bolt of lightning that was Nora split the tree-stag Grimm in two from its crown, through its face, clear to the base of its roots. The break was charred, half of it instantly in flames despite the lingering maelstrom as it toppled to the surface of the glass lake in pieces.

Nora climbed from the wreckage of the monster, perching on half of its trunk and bracing one hand on her hip. The rain and hail abated as she shielded her eyes with one hand to survey the damages. Satisfied that the Grimm stag tree was in fact dead, Nora remarked to no one in particular: "Don't stand under a tree during a lightning storm, kids. It's dangerous."

Ren brushed dust and ash off his sleeves on his way to stand beside the half-trunk his partner had commandeered to deliver an imaginary PSA. He felt his feet begin to sink as the glass shielding the lake melted back into water, slowly dragging the scattered pieces of shattered Grimm down into the lake bed. His eyes were elsewhere, watching quietly as the mountains in the distance disappeared.

The very horizon itself slowly dragged downwards into gentle nothingness.


	13. Destination

Ruby's lungs burned as she entered the hall. The paint was melting. The tiles were hot underfoot. The thought crossed her mind: maybe this was a bad idea.

But it was Yang and Blake. She had to do something.

So she left Weiss with Pyrrha and gimped down the hall on her half-healed leg, breathing the familiar-but-way-more-intense-than-usual heat of her sister's semblance as she made her way to the pair of figures nearest the fire.

"Professors? What's going on?" she swiped her hair out of her face and leaned on one of the monitors near Glynda's barrier, shielding her eyes from the brightness of the flames beyond the swirling shield.

Green eyes darted back to Ruby in surprise, narrowing once more as they returned to focus on the glowing purple rings keeping the flames at bay.

"Miss Rose, it's good to see you up and well." Glynda glanced at Ozpin, searching him for a brief moment before answering the young team leader's question.

"There is a high probability that your sister has turned," she stated flatly, forgoing delicacy in favor of directness. "And yet," she continued in a slightly softer tone, "as we have no visual confirmation, I'm giving miss Xiao Long the benefit of the doubt and maintaining this position for the time being." Heat pulsed through the barrier in relentless waves, making the professor's scowl deepen. "Though, I can't just stand here and hold it forever."

"I could go in," Ruby volunteered, putting more weight on her bandaged leg so it didn't look as much like she was favoring it. "Yang's semblance doesn't burn me."

Ozpin remained silent, braced on his cane as he watched the flames lick around the edges of Glynda's barrier. There was no denying that the Xiao Long girl was in peril of becoming, or had already become a creature of Grimm. The presence of her semblance was encouraging, but ultimately an imprecise indicator of her current state. Ruby Rose had just recovered herself, due to a monumental effort on the part of her companion. Could he justify asking- well, in this case allowing- her to risk her safety again?

"Please, she's my sister," the teen was leaning heavily on one of the fried monitors mounted along the wall.

The Headmaster was a sucker for heroics and family ties, and he knew it. He looked to Glynda over the edge of his spectacles.

Glynda scowled at the inferno before them. She could feel it rising in intensity with each passing second. Ruby's offer to scope out the scene was tempting to say the very least. If she could simply walk through this mess of flames and give them a visual it would provide them with the confirmation they needed to act accordingly.

But sending their youngest student in the entire school to deal with the unknown complications of an affliction that hadn't been seen in decades would be nothing short of negligent. Not to mention, she didn't quite trust the heroically-inclined girl not to intervene if her sister had indeed turned.

Expression stern, she stared straight ahead for what felt like an eternity. They were waiting for her to say something. If Ozpin was going to leave the decision to her, she would play it by the book. He knew this – so she could only assume he was allowing her to stop him from making another potential mistake. Glynda sighed.

"I'm sorry Miss Rose," she said softy, "It's too great a risk."

Ruby began to protest, but Ozpin held up his hand to cut her off.

"I'm afraid Glynda is correct," he said. She probably hadn't forgiven him for the time he sent the girl after her partner inside the rat's ear. Now wasn't the time to worry about that, however.

"But there's Blake-" even if Ruby couldn't be burned, the heat was terrible. She cringed away from the shifting barrier as it pulsed again. "I could use my aura."

"Ah. And how much aura do you have at your disposal?" Ozpin inquired, keeping an eye on Goodwitch's barrier.

Ruby didn't answer. Her silver gaze dropped to the floor.

* * *

><p>The Grimm dragon paid no heed to its relentless pursuers or their terrible puns, intent on flying as high as possible, as quickly as possible, smashing through any and all pipes in its way.<p>

Yang refused to let it escape. She dogged it relentlessly, leaping from pipe to pipe, clipping the furious beast with the occasional right hook to keep it distracted.

Blake did her best to keep pace, but everything - her chest and back especially - had started to ache, slowing her ascent to no small degree. Her lips parted in a small sigh. It wasn't something she liked doing, but she realized she would have to resort to using her semblance to catch up. And so she did, darting upwards as close to vertically as possible.

Moving this way, it took her very little time to close the distance. They were now higher in the latticework structure of pipes than she'd been yet, directly over the mountain, which, looking down at it now, she noted was indeed actually a volcano, just as she had suspected.

Instinct told her to grab as many of the decent-sized lengths of broken pipe falling through the air as she could on her way up, their numbers dwindling to none as she overtook Yang and the thrashing Grimm dragon. The pipes were much farther apart this high up, giving the dragon more room to avoid them altogether. Blake wasn't exactly sure what she would do with her armful of pipes, but she at least had a small arsenal now if she decided to go on another stabbing spree.

"Blake!"

Amber eyes darted downward, past the Grimm dragon snaking towards her, to meet amethyst, backed by the glowing mouth of the volcano beneath them.

"Throw me one of those!"

Blake tossed one of the pipes in her arms down to her partner without a second thought. It was a strange request, considering she'd never seen the brawler use any weapon other than her fists, but she'd learned by now to just roll with it.

Yang tracked the falling pipe with a sharp eye, pulling an arm back and taking careful aim. In a flash, she leapt towards it and punched it as hard as she could, aura at full blast. The pipe shot through the air, straight and true, right through the Grimm dragon.

Muffled guttural shrieking and oily blood poured from the writhing soulless beast, its snout smoking in rage as it desperately tried in vain to shoot flames at either one of its assailants.

Blake simply stared in awe. This was infinitely better than a stabbing spree.

"Yeah! Nailed it! Send me another!"

Blake didn't need to be told twice. She dodged the Grimm's blind rage-fueled charges, tossing pipe after pipe to her partner, Yang smashing each one up through the air with her fists, riddling their enemy with holes.

The Grimm dragon's movements were becoming more sluggish and erratic with each gaping wound it took on. Unfortunately, Blake could feel herself slowing down as well. Using her semblance so heavily was wearing her down more quickly than she had anticipated. Still, a smile dared to work its way across Blake's features as yet another pipe shot straight through the Grimm dragon, this time impaling its neck.

This could work. Working together like this, they might actually be able to kill this thing. Though, she was starting to run low on 'ammunition'.

Blake tossed one of her last few pipes down to her partner-turned-railgun as she barely avoided a sloppy swipe from the Grimm's claws with a sloppy dodge of her own. She jumped towards a pipe off to her left to put some distance between herself and the oozing dragon that was currently circling around for another attack.

"Yang - I might need to get m-" pain flared in Blake's chest mid-jump, radiating down her spine and through her bones. Thrown off kilter by a sudden fit of coughing, she hit her landing at an awkward angle and slipped off the pipe's rounded surface, tumbling through the air as she hacked up more blackness. Though dazed, she could clearly make out the sound of her partner desperately calling for her.

Through the jumble of the world spinning around her, Blake caught sight of the Grimm dragon charging at her. A quick spin removed her from the path of its claws... directly into the path of its tail.

She braced for impact. Familiar hands shoved her out of the way. The resounding _SMACK _that followed rang in Blake's ears and flooded her with adrenaline once more, helping her grab hold of a long pipe that nearly clotheslined her as she fell.

She watched in horror as Yang plummeted through an area devoid of pipes, straight towards the volcano below. No Ember Celica meant no landing strategy - no way to change her fall's trajectory - no way to avoid what was coming.

"Yang!"

The brawler disappeared beneath a molten lake of gold.

* * *

><p>Glynda lost track of time as the flames pressing against her barrier continued to blaze. A sudden spike in intensity caught her by surprise. The force was still manageable, but it wouldn't be for much longer. She furrowed her brows in concentration once more, ready to order Ruby to evacuate, when the pressure on her barrier vanished.<p>

In the blink of an eye, the flames of her student's semblance snuffed out, leaving a singed smoking hallway in their wake. Glynda stood frozen for a moment, hands slowly lowering to dissipate her barrier. She cast a sidelong glance at Ozpin. This was either a very good sign, or a very _bad _sign.

"Yang," Ruby scanned the stretch of blackened corridor for any sign of her sister. Had her semblance stopped because she'd woken up and was fine, or because...?

Professor Ozpin stepped in front of her, smooth, focused on the blown open doorway towards the end of the hall. "Miss Rose, I suggest you remain behind me for the time being."

Ruby nodded and stuck close as they proceeded down the hallway to investigate.

Glynda followed no less than a step behind, riding crop up and at the ready if they needed another barrier. As they neared the charred door frame she placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder and slowed her to a stop. She briefly caught the headmaster's eyes as he walked into the room, right through the ashes of what used to be the door, streaking the floor and the opposite wall.

Ozpin's eyes narrowed.

The partners lay in a heap in the middle of the scorched floor.

Blake Belladonna's fire-resistant gear had mostly burned away, but she appeared unharmed. She lay with her entire body curled around her partner's hand.

Yang Xiao Long, meanwhile, seemed to breathe easy where she had collapsed next to her partner. Her tangle of golden hair had spilled every which way, and her face was peaceful.

Still. It paid to be cautious. Ozpin observed the pair, waiting for them to wake.

* * *

><p>Time slowed to a crawl and ultimately seemed to freeze as Blake stared down at the lava, waiting for her partner to resurface. Any second now the wily brawler would break the surface with a laugh, or a choice swear, or possibly both.<p>

Any second now.

Soon.

Maybe the fall sent her pretty deep down. Maybe it would take a while for her to swim back up through the lava.

Blake refused to acknowledge how ridiculous the phrase "swim through lava" probably sounded to anyone sane.

Pain radiating from her back clouded her thoughts. She didn't understand many of the finer points of aura, and barely knew anything about dreamscapes, but she'd never heard of anyone being harmed by their own aura, so... So _why wasn't Yang surfacing_. The brawler most definitely should have surfaced by now… but there was nothing. No sign of even a single ripple on the golden surface below.

The molten lake of fire remained smooth and still, which was odd in its own right, as what little Blake remembered of geology told her that lava like that should be bubbling and churning. The unbidden thought occurred to her that it could be because her partner, the dreamscape's source, was gone. Had the Grimm dragon hit her that hard? But then, if that were the case, wouldn't the entire world itself vanish as well? Blake hung her head. Nothing made sense, everything hurt, and a strange numbness overtook her at even considering the possibility of having lost her partner for a second time.

Senses dulled by confusion and pain, she didn't notice the Grimm dragon speeding towards her.

Blake started, eyes flying wide when she felt claws close around her, plucking her from the air in a crushing grip. A calm sense of detachment spread through her as she pushed with all her might against the bony talons pinning her arms to her body, but she stopped when she realized the grip was ironclad. It didn't help that her own strength had been ebbing away the entire fight.

The black lines creeping down her hands flared and stretched, winding down her arms at a quickened pace, as if invigorated by such close proximity to the Grimm dragon that was currently using its other arm to claw at the ribbons around its jaws to no avail - the sturdy black fabric had caught on the jagged bony plates of its snout. Blake almost smiled as the impatient beast pressed her repeatedly to its bound face, hissing all the while in sheer frustration at being denied the chance to swallow her whole.

That desire to smile vanished when the dragon spiked her downwards in a fit of rage, straight into the volcano below.

Three quick dashes to the side sent Blake careening in to the inner wall of the volcano where she scrambled for purchase, finally latching onto a small outcrop of rock about halfway down. She watched her shadow clones fall, incinerating before they even touched the placid golden surface waiting beneath her.

A muffled roar brought her gaze back to the sky. The Grimm dragon loomed above, speeding ever closer, and the lava loomed below. There was nowhere to run.

The Grimm dragon was mere feet away now, snaking over the lava with a murderous glint in those blood red orbs. Blake closed her eyes and waited, muttering a silent apology to her team.

A deafening blast shocked her eyes right back open. The lava below erupted, surging upwards in the vague form of a great beast's head with crimson eyes trailing fire, its wide open mouth engulfing the Grimm dragon as it tried to pass by. Blake watched in stunned silence as the molten jaws snapped shut, dragging the Grimm dragon writhing and twisting in agony down into the lava below. The soulless beast dissolved with a final hideous shriek, leaving behind nothing more than a dark oily streak of black.

The surface of the lava returned to its previous placid state. Silence fell heavy upon the exhausted Faunus hanging from her rocky outcrop. Blake stared down at the lava in shock, trying to make sense of what just happened. The Grimm was gone, that much was apparent, but nothing was happening. Was... something supposed to happen? Was she stuck here? Searing pain stabbing through her back interrupted her thoughts. She craned her neck around to inspect herself, eyes widening in shock.

Bony spires jutted from her spine.

Blake stared off into space, her thoughts slowing to a crawl as reality sank in. She was turning. She was going to become a Grimm, and she had no idea how to stop it.

Would she wake up and attack the school? Would her teammates be forced to watch Beacon's staff take her down? Would she be stuck here? Maybe that strange lava beast would return to finish her off.

Blake's gaze dropped back to said lava, the one substance here that she'd seen capable of destroying a Grimm. A quiet sense of resolve overrode the pain searing her from the inside out.

She would save them all the trouble.

Blake released her hold on the outcrop, closing her eyes as she dropped into the motionless lake of gold.

Scorching heat encompassed her on all sides, eating away at the streaks of black on her arms. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but not the immediate end she had been expecting. Before she could ponder this, another surprise round of coughing stripped her of whatever breath she had been holding, and the molten liquid around her filled her lungs, sending fresh waves of pain through her system. Slowly, she sank, losing awareness. In a fit of what she assumed was delirious wishful thinking, she felt a pair of arms encircle her from behind.

_"I've got you."_

A familiar voice drifted through her thoughts.

_"You're going to be fine."_

Blake wanted to respond, but she had already slipped away.

* * *

><p>A horrible acrid smell permeated the air. Smoke, ashes, lingering heat. Golden eyebrows twitched slightly, followed by a low moan. Yang's eyes cracked open, blazing crimson as they swept the room. In a single blink, they were back to amethyst, focused on the motionless form beside her.<p>

"Blake..." She reached out, instinctively pulling the dark haired girl towards her and into a tight hug. Her partner didn't stir. "You can wake up now," Yang slurred, allowing her eyes to slide shut again. Keeping them open was hard. Maybe Blake had the right idea - keep sleeping...

The headmaster called the others in.

Ruby was at Yang's side in a second, rose petals tumbling off her as she skidded to a halt, glancing at the charred remains of whatever furniture had been in the room and then up at the headmaster. "Is she okay?"

A smile tugged the edge of Ozpin's mouth and he gave her a go-ahead motion.

"Yang," Ruby crouched at her side, poking her shoulder, "Yaaaaaaang. Wake up."

Sharp green eyes watched from the doorway, gradually softening in relief. Glynda crossed her arms, casting her usual sideways glance at Ozpin. "We're going to need more wheelchairs, aren't we."

Ozpin chuckled at Glynda's comment. "Quite possibly. Then again, a night in the infirmary should do a lot towards setting them right. Perhaps we'll discuss arrangements up in the recovery ward."

Glynda nodded in agreement, keeping an eye on her students for the time being.

The arm being poked lifted, searching out its target. Yang's hand found Ruby's - target acquired. Smiling widely, she yanked her little sister down for a hug, right on top of both herself and Blake. "Hey sis~"

"Gah, Yang, okay, let go," Ruby laughed, struggling to get up.

Yang laughed as well, gave Ruby a squeeze, and opened one eye to look around the room, fully expecting to see Weiss huffing in frustration somewhere. Yang frowned at their final teammate's absence. "Why is it that our hugpiles are always missing a certain white-haired ice princess."

Finally, Blake stirred, her words slow and muffled from being buried under both sisters. "It's heiress, actually."

Ruby's grin dropped when her teammates mentioned her partner, "Oh, guys, Pyrrha took her upstairs. We should go so she knows everything's okay. Is everything okay? You guys look kind of wiped out. What happened?"

Blake groaned at the onslaught of words, curling tighter around the warm hand in her grip. Sensing that her partner was in no mood to explain anything, Yang slid her arm off of Ruby and brought a hand to her chin, trying her best to think back.

"Well..." she frowned slightly, "there was volcano, a whole lot of fire, and I got to punch things, which is always great," a sudden grimace, "and also I ate a Grimm dragon. It tasted terrible."

Blake pushed back an inch, eyes finally opening to stare up at Yang with a curious gleam. "So that _was _you."

"Whoa, that sounds crazy," Ruby lay in the middle of the other two, eyes bright with admiration for her sister. She dodged her gaze away, realizing that she didn't really want to talk about what had happened with her and Weiss.

She'd tried to hurt her- had hurt her (had healed her too, but well, that didn't quite even things out)- and they'd been awesome at the end but geez Ruby had still kind of abandoned her to come check on Yang. Wracked with sudden guilt, she pushed herself up, "I need to go and find Weiss. Are you guys... going to stay here a while?"

Yang blinked, threw a quick glance at Blake, then gazed around at the charred, blackened room. She couldn't shake a sense of foreboding at the sight of the damage her semblance was capable of. "You know, as much as I would love to sleep for a week, I'd rather not sleep here." In one fluid motion, the brawler dragged herself into a sitting position, pulling a very reluctant, very sleepy Blake up along with her. Yang winked at her little sister, trademark grin in place. "Let's _all _go find Weiss."

* * *

><p>The dreamscape was ending.<p>

"Nora." Pink eyes locked with teal, shining with something warm through heavy exhaustion. "It's time we left."

"Do we have to?" Nora slid down off the tree trunk, splashing in the glass-turned-water. Magnhild vanished from her hands. She clasped her hands behind her back, scuffing her shoes on the dissolving glass, "If the lake stayed solid long enough we could have a bonfire and roast marshmallows. It's been forever since we've had dream marshmallows. Days and days."

Ren's eyes lit up in thought. "When we wake up... we should make marshmallow pancakes."

"Yes-okay-let's-wake-up-right-now," Nora threw her arms around his shoulders, hauling him down to touch foreheads.

A brief sensation of falling overtook them as the glass melted away beneath their feet, and their surroundings blurred away to nothing. Nora shut her eyes, and when the world quit tumbling, she lifted her head back in the special cases ward.

Professor Port was watching over them. Jaune was texting on his scroll, his brow creased with anxiety. Nora looked down at Ren, whom she was still lying on top of. She sat up on his stomach, "Wake up, sleepyhead. It's pancake time!"

Ren's eyes flew open as the breath was crushed out of him by the sudden force that was Nora's bodyweight. He stared up at the ceiling, keeping as still as possible as he gingerly flexed his hands, testing each finger. That searing pain he'd become so familiar with in the past few days - the one that came with each minuscule movement - was finally gone. His eyes landed on the source of his recovery, who was still sitting on his stomach with a bright smile.

With a quiet sigh of relief he pushed himself to his elbows, resting for only a second before finally pushing the rest of the way up into a proper sitting position, causing Nora to slide off of him and onto the bed. Too tired to really pay attention to anything else in the room, Ren simply leaned towards his partner, resting his head on her shoulder with a small smile.

At this point, he felt he would probably bury the world in pancakes if she asked.

"I'm up."

Jaune noticed his recovered teammates and dropped his scroll in surprise, "You're okay!"

"We're better than okay," Nora grinned, setting her chin on the top of Ren's head and giving their team leader a thumb's up. "Well, we will be once food is involved."

* * *

><p>Weiss lay on the couch in the waiting room, her eyes shut and her forehead against the hideous flower print upholstery as she performed rudimentary breathing exercises in an effort to rest and stay calm while her teammates fought for their lives. She'd managed to shift onto her side, facing the back cushions so that Pyrrha would stop trying to reassure her.<p>

The crimson-haired warrior kept pacing to the elevator and back, as if torn between going back for the rest of JNPR and staying to watch over her, which Weiss appreciated somewhat. Deep down, anyway. Past the hazy indignation and embarrassment at having been carried bodily through the halls of the infirmary.

Anxious. Useless. Frustrated. Ruby had just left her. Weiss understood, of course: Ruby had to check on Yang. She was her sister, after all, and Weiss had been too weak to go with her. The heiress crossed her arms over her middle.

_Ding._

The elevator doors slid open. She heard the happy voices of her team greeting Pyrrha. Another batch of mixed-up emotions hit Weiss when the girls laughed. Relief was one. Loneliness was another. She curled a little more on her side, pretending to be asleep.

Sharp amber eyes caught the slight movement from across the room. Still hanging heavily on Yang's side, Blake gently nudged her partner, motioning to the couch with a slight inclination of her head. Yang paused mid laugh, followed Blake's eyes to the couch, and grinned. The smile never left her face as she looked over the girl responsible for bringing her sister back to the world of the living, safe and sound.

Twice now, the supposedly-icy heiress had brought Ruby back to her – essentially proving that she was someone who could be trusted to take care of her little sister. Whatever qualms she might have had with Weiss before were water under the bridge. In fact, she was going to march right over there and-

"Did you happen to see my teammates on your way up here?"

Yang blinked, thoughts broken by Pyrrha's quiet statement.

Pyrrha continued, eyes downcast, "... Are they... are they all right?"

"They seemed fine." Blake cut in, "The Professors told us to wait up here, so they'll probably be up soon too."

Every bit of tension seemed to slip from the warrior's expression, replaced with a winning smile. "Good. That's good."

"So, how is our resident ice princess?" Yang motioned with a thumb towards the other side of the room.

"She's well, just very tired."

"Well enough for... hugs?"

"I... I believe so?"

"Well then, you heard her!" Yang gave Ruby a light shove. The younger girl had been fidgeting the entire time, clearly anxious to check on her partner. "Go get her, sis," she winked, "we'll be right behind you." Still leaning heavily on the smiley brawler, Blake managed a sleepy nod of agreement.

"Yang, she looks like she's sleeping. I don't want to-" Ruby whispered as she stumbled towards the couch, propelled by her sister. The bandage on her leg had come partially loose and her tank top was crooked, and she was just a mess in general. She rubbed the back of her neck, glaring daggers at her sister as she crossed the rest of the way to the couch and crouched beside the armrest near her partner's head.

"Hey, Weiss. Are you awake?" When the heiress didn't answer, Ruby poked her shoulder a little, "Weiss?"

Weiss kept up the act for a couple more pokes before she finally sighed, "I'm trying to _rest_."

Ruby cringed, dropping her hand to join the one braced on her ankle as she sat cross-legged on the floor next to the couch, "... are you okay? You sound kind of mad."

Weiss kept her arms crossed, "I'm not mad."

"You sound mad," Ruby peeked up through her bangs, "and you're hiding against the couch cushions."

"Don't be ridiculous. I just got back from that... whatever that was down in the ward, and I..." Weiss's voice cracked a little. She swallowed, trying for a snarl, "... I'm too tired for this."

"I'm sorry I bit you."

"What?" Great. Now she had to sit up. With some effort, Weiss got herself turned around, propped up against the armrest. She frowned at her downcast partner, "That wasn't you."

"It felt like me," Ruby dodged her eyes, "I mean, I didn't want to do it, but I couldn't stop it. And I could still feel it."

"Well... I hardly think biting me is worse than... than..." Weiss remembered the sickening give, the clatter of the bone mask on the sullied bricks. It was too real, too recent. She fell silent, blinking to clear her vision as she searched Ruby's un-injured face. "Anyway. You could have asked if I was okay before you left me with Pyrrha."

"Huh?" the younger girl looked up, "You said you were fine, didn't you?"

Weiss turned away, hands clenched on the hem of her shirt, "I said 'shut up'. That's not the same thing as 'I'm fine'."

Ruby wilted with confused remorse, "Oh." Then she said, "Thank you. For back there."

Weiss flushed, "Well, it wasn't like I knew how to leave, or anything."

She stole a glance at her partner. Ruby had a shy smile; her dark hair stood out in weird directions, and she had soot streaked on her cheeks. Slowly Weiss relaxed a little.

_Ding._

"That was almost longer coming up than going down," Nora proclaimed as she stepped off the elevator. "Anyone have a camp stove?"

Yang sidestepped to avoid a collision as Pyrrha rushed to greet her team. She then eyed Weiss and Ruby before meeting Blake's eyes with a conspiratorial grin. "I think it's time." Once she had Blake's nod of agreement, Yang dragged them over to the couch, picked up Ruby without warning, and dropped her on top of Weiss.

"HUGPILE," was their only warning before the brawler proceeded to crush them both to the couch in a hug, pulling a not-entirely-reluctant Blake down with her as well. "Yeah!" Yang squeezed them together with all her might. "Now _this_ is more like it."

Weiss was too slow to get out from under the avalanche that was the rest of her team and immediately shoved at and lit into them, "You-! Get off. How am I supposed to breathe with you _all on top of me? Get off._"

Ruby started laughing, attempting to hold herself up so she wasn't smashing her partner, but her arm just slipped down between the couch cushions and Yang's hair was tickling the back of her neck and none of them were hurt or Grimm or anything, so she just kept laughing and trying to push her sister off and not crush her partner all at the same time. None of it worked very well.

Her laugh was contagious, and even Weiss caught it, breathlessly from the bottom of the pile. For a handful of seconds anyway.

They were all okay. Maybe a little tired, definitely a little dirty- Yang and Blake in particular smelled like a burnt-out locker room; Ruby always had an undercurrent scent of roses, but it didn't help this time. They had been beaten up, poisoned, and almost transformed into their worst nightmares, but now they were all okay, tumbled in a heap, laughing like idiots on the beat up waiting-room couch.

This time, they'd recover for real. No more antitoxin. No more crazy painkillers. No more wild dreamscapes or twisted versions of each other.

Yang was doing something ticklish to her sister and Ruby had long since collapsed into a helpless fit of giggles, her face buried in Weiss's shirt. The heiress scowled as convincingly as she could, the backs of her ears beginning to burn, "Okay. Really, get off now."

The display did not go unnoticed by the members of Team JNPR. Jaune was stuck somewhere between ignoring everything, glancing at Pyrrha to see if he should be ignoring everything, and laughing. Nora, however, joined the celebratory spirit of things without reserve.

"Guys, let's do that too!" Nora hopped onto Ren's back, calling, "Pancakes are on hold in favor of a hugpile on Ren!"

Ren staggered backwards, nearly toppling over until Jaune and Pyrrha caught his elbows. He threw his teammates a quiet look of thanks. Pyrrha broke into peals of genuine laughter, happy to see her team back in one piece. "Perhaps we should hug pile on someone who isn't still recovering," she suggested with a pointed smile at Nora.

Nora tugged at the back of Ren's collar, "Ren, Ren, jump on Jaune, quick!"

"Wait, what? Why me?" Jaune flailed an arm at his partner, "Pyrrha suggested it!"

Meanwhile, Professor Ozpin emerged from the staff break area, mug of coffee in hand. He took a long sip, observing the happy scene from the back of the room. Glynda, at his side, was busy with a clipboard, arranging for beds in the recovery ward for the students.

Not all of them needed to stay, of course, but cots could be found if they wished to remain with their teammates. After all, the presence of a friendly face could go a long way after an event such as this.

"Fascinating," Professor Oobleck emerged from the break room as well, rolls of paper jutting from his back pocket, "Simply fascinating that they were all successful. I shall have to interview them, it seems. Such an archaic technique. Very few accounts of modern day usage. Truly remarkable. You don't suppose they would be interested in contributing to a scholarly article or two?"

"I'm sure they would be happy to oblige," Ozpin smiled over the rim of his cup as Miss Valkyrie released her partner and tackled her team leader. The blond swordsman lost his balance and sprawled across the tile. "But perhaps let's give them a chance to get back on their feet first. What do you think, Glynda?"

Glynda glanced up from her clipboard, arrangements all in place, and offered the headmaster a rare smile. "I think... you're right."

"Hm," Ozpin said, reflecting that even a broken timepiece could be correct twice a day. He refrained from making any further comment on the matter, however, contenting himself with watching over his students, all of whom were laughing and bickering, all very much alive and well.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: It's hard to believe... but with this, we have the ending of the story proper... thank you all SO MUCH for taking this crazy ride with us! We can't thank you enough for all the messages, reviews, likes, follows - the whole nine yards. You guys are amazing and FABULOUS. **

**Stick around though! There are epilogues. You're going to be stuck with us for a little while yet. Ahaha~**

**Bearhugs,**  
><strong>Defenestrator<strong>


	14. Epilogue 1 part 1: Slight Damage Control

**A/N: Hey everybody! Everybody who's still alive after those cliffhangers, anyway. I can't believe you survived that. There was literally nowhere to put a chapter break without a cliffhanger. (If it makes you feel better I had to deal with Defenestrator and her Yang-turning-into-a-Grimm-dragon-out-of-nowhere ideas too, except I only got a couple of _paragraphs_ before she had to go back and _work_ for, like, _days_.) **

**Right, so let me give you a quick run-down of this epilogue deal: Defenestrator and I, after all the craziness of the dreamscape arc, realized there were a few things we needed to tie up story-wise. Namely:**

**1) the rest of the fallout from Blake snapping Weiss's scroll in half. **

**2) that 'talk' Yang was going to have with Weiss. **

**and 3) Ruby's cape, which has been _missing_ all the way since the beginning of Grimm Rats. **

**Hence the epilogues. They wound up longer than we'd initially planned... there was laughter, there were tears, Weiss was... well... _Weiss_ ... so we've divided things into a couple of chapters (both because of length annnnnnnnd because we need some time to get our next story finished up). **

**Anyway, Saturday is still super-magic update day, so stay tuned and stay awesome. (And leave a review if you've enjoyed the ride so far.) **

**- Fiercesomest**

* * *

><p>Days passed. None of the members of Team RWBY or JNPR showed any signs of serious medical complications. In fact, they recovered from their injuries with remarkable celerity. Ruby was dashing across the cafeteria and back within the week, much to a certain heiress's chagrin.<p>

Rose petals showered across the table into peoples' food as the dark haired girl reappeared at the bench. "I got you some napkins, Weiss."

"I don't need napkins," the fencer ignored both the offering and the way the others at the table surreptitiously turned their attention to the two. Well, Nora wasn't great at doing anything surreptitiously, but Weiss still ignored her.

"But it's french fry day," Ruby persisted, sliding a couple over to her partner's plate.

"Oh, please," Weiss slid her plate farther away and picked up her fork.

"You are _not _eating french fries with a fork."

"Excuse me? I can eat my lunch however I want. Ruby, stop it! I don't want _any _napkins, why are you giving me more?!"

"I'm not! I'm just making one pile so we can share if you change your mind. Geez, chill out, they're just napkins," Ruby evened the stack out a little bit and sat back in her place, giving Weiss an incredulous look, "You're seriously using a fork?"

"You're seriously still talking about this?" Weiss shot back, using her fork to cut the fries into more bite-sized lengths. Her cuts were decisive. Businesslike. Her face straight as she speared up a piece. "Stop laughing, Ruby."

"I'm not laughing."

"Well, stop _smirking._ It's not funny."

Sitting across the table, Pyrrha smiled behind her fork of noodles – ever a fan of team RWBY's antics – one eyebrow raised in anticipation as Yang reached over to steal one of Ruby's fries.

"What's the matter, Weiss?" Yang grabbed the floppiest, greasiest fry she could find and wiggled it in the heiress's face. "Afraid to get a little dirty?"

Blake tried to focus on her book - she had been reading almost nonstop since the doctors had given her the OK the day before - but in the corner of her eye she could see Weiss edging closer and closer to exploding in fury, so she smacked Yang's arm with a bit more force than usual, inadvertently sending the offending fry sailing through the air, where it landed with a light _plop_ right into Ren's soup. She sent him a quick apology with her eyes, to which he responded with a light shrug as he fished the fry out of his soup and placed it on Nora's plate.

"Heh, I guess you could say that- oW." Yang rubbed her arm where Blake had smacked her again, effectively interrupting her obvious attempt to make a pun. "You know if you're going to keep hitting me could you at least aim for different spots?"

Blake ignored her partner's whining as she grabbed an errant rose petal to use as a place holder and shut her book. With a quick glance at Weiss, her gaze settled on her still-smirking team leader. "Ruby. Would you mind coming with me into town today?"

Ruby scooted forward on the bench a little, "Huh? Sure," she looked around the table, "Does anybody else need anything? We could make a group trip."

"Do we have syrup?" Nora ate the soup-drenched fry and dipped another into Ren's bowl.

"Please don't get the purple kind," Jaune put in from his edge of the table, grimacing, "That took forever to get out of my sheets."

"I replenished our syrup reserves just yesterday - with the regular kind." Pyrrha answered with a wink at Jaune as she twirled more noodles onto her fork.

Blake felt Yang shift beside her and turned to catch her partner looking her way. They held a quick conversation with their eyes.

"Eh, I'm not really feeling a trip into town right now," Yang finally said with a nonchalant shrug, turning to smile at Ruby. "All those days I spent laying around in a medicated haze have got me feeling way rusty. I was thinking of getting some training in - like maybe some sparring!" Her smile widened into a grin, aimed directly at the white haired girl currently collecting another fry on the end of her fork. "How about it Weiss? You wanna have a go? Or are you still too afraid to get dirty~?"

"Oh, I'm simply petrified," Weiss rolled her eyes, "What sort of sparring do you have in mind?"

"Man, I could go for anything at this point," Yang cracked her knuckles, letting out a brief sigh of content at the familiar feeling. "Whatever you pick is fine with me."

"I guess it's just us for the town trip then," Ruby nudged Blake with her shoulder and popped another couple of fries into her mouth. She stood up, dusting her hands on her skirt, "Want to go now?"

Blake eyed her teammates, genuinely interested in the potential duel between fighters who essentially embodied fire and ice, but she pushed her metaphoric thoughts to the side for the time being, shifting her focus back to Ruby.

"Sure." she picked up her book and stood as well, casting one final glance at Yang. The brawler had been trying to catch Weiss alone for a couple of days now, and Blake knew exactly why. Her gaze flicked back to Ruby. The younger girl was still smiling up at her, waiting. Blake smiled back. "Let's go then." She offered a quick parting nod to the rest of the table, heading out with Ruby in tow, quietly hoping that neither of their partners would murder the other while they were out.

Weiss tossed her hair over her shoulder, still addressing Yang. "What I'm saying is I'm a fencer, and you're a... a..." she searched for the right word.

"Think of it as mixed martial arts," Yang offered with a smile.

The heiress waved her free hand in the air, "whatever. Our styles aren't exactly conducive to not killing each other."

"Hmm, I guess you do have a… _point_," the brawler snickered at her own joke.

"You could do a no-weapons match?" Jaune suggested, only to be met with a withering glare from Weiss. Going hand-to-hand with Yang? For someone who knew their martial arts, that was only slightly suicidal. For a non-brawler... well... Jaune sank down at his place, "... or you could not."

"Unarmed combat can be an important facet of training," Pyrrha chimed in. "On the off chance that you find yourself disarmed in battle."

"It's tough to be disarmed when your fists _are _your weapons," Yang winked at Pyrrha, "but it's true though." She looked back to her scowling teammate, pausing for a moment before crossing her arms with a smile. "You know, I could give you a few pointers if you want, Weiss."

The heiress glanced at Yang sidewise, assessing her taller, stronger-built frame. Weiss very seldom met an opponent she had much of a raw, physical advantage over, and in the past her training with Myrtenaster and her glyphs left little room for much else anyway. She speared another fry, "I suppose that could be... interesting. Just don't ask for fencing tips in return."

"No problem. So, I'm gonna take that 'interesting' as a yes then," Yang declared happily, scooping up Blake and Ruby's abandoned plates and placing them atop her own before setting her face in both of her hands and fixing Weiss with an eager stare. She waited impatiently as another fry met its end, mercilessly skewered on the tines of Weiss's fork. "...Eat faster."

"Stop staring. It's rude," Weiss continued to eat one fry at a time, chewing and swallowing before stabbing the next one.

On the other side of the heavy oak table, Jaune glanced between Yang and Weiss and looked at Pyrrha with a silent question: _is Weiss going to die?_

Pyrrha smiled and shrugged.

* * *

><p>The transport ride down to the city of Vale was fairly uneventful. Ruby explored the ship she'd explored a dozen times, people watched, dodged anyone being sick, and stared out the window at the city below.<p>

It was strange being out and about without her cloak. She rubbed her shoulder, missing the familiar weight. There was no way they'd be allowed to go to Forever Fall and hunt for it till they'd fully recovered, if at all. Glynda had stared at her as if she were asking for a trip to candy-cane mountain or something and had suggested finding a new cloak, but it wouldn't be the same.

As the shuttle touched down, she turned to Blake, "So where are we going first? I vote ice cream at some point before we leave- there's a new place close to the Dust shop on Main," she added, fidgeting, "but we don't have to."

"Ice cream..." Blake stared down the busy city streets with a distant smile. "I haven't had that in a very long time. I second this vote." She started to head towards the center of town, motioning for Ruby to follow. "So long as we hit the electronics shop at some point, we can go wherever you want."

"Wait, come this way," Ruby caught Blake's arm and dragged her down a side street, "This way we can hit a couple of Dust-and-Weapons stores, the electronics place, and finish with at the frozen yogurt place. Well, it advertises frozen yogurt, but they have _super_ good regular ice cream too, you know? I mean, frozen yogurt is good too, though."

The sun was high, the pavement was hot. Brick and mortar buildings stood firm along the streets, windows flying colors and banners advertising everything from cheap meals and groceries to jewelry and equipment repair. Vale was busy with the usual coming and going of its citizens- people lingered in open air cafes or stood on the steps at corner stores, shooting the breeze or discussing news.

Ruby found herself trying to watch everything at once. She swung her arms to get out some pent up energy, "It's good to be back in action, huh? Last week felt like _years._"

Blake matched the girl's cheerful grin with one of her own, following close by as Ruby confidently headed around another twist, another turn, another corner, silver eyes bright. Ruby seemed to know these back roads exceptionally well, and Blake was silently grateful for the unexpected path as she wasn't particularly fond of the crowds that tended to gather on more heavily trafficked streets.

Part of her wondered if Ruby had taken them this way on purpose. That would be just like her. Blake quickened her pace a bit to keep up. It was deeply pleasing to see the younger girl back in high spirits, and the positive energy radiating from her was contagious as always.

Lost as she was in thought, it took Blake a moment to realize she was staring, and that Ruby was now staring back, apparently still waiting for a response. "Oh - yes. We were all pretty out of it on that ridiculous medication." Amber eyes dimmed for only a second before lighting up with mischief. "Do you remember anything at all?"

"It's all kind of mixed up," Ruby ran a hand over her hair, "Was Yang on fire one time? I think I had a dream that her bunk got blown up."

"That... wasn't a dream." A tinge of worry darkened Blake's smile at the memory. She had never seen Yang so panicked, and if there was anything she could do to help prevent it, she never wanted to see it again.

Not wanting to drag Ruby's mood down, Blake changed the subject, rounding on the younger girl with a raised eyebrow. "Does this mean you don't remember tackling Weiss to the floor?"

"Uh..." the spring went out of Ruby's step as she remembered pushing her partner to the ground to throttle her. Sure, she hadn't been in control of her body at the time- not even a little- but the guilt weighed heavy in her chest. She scuffed at the sidewalk, "I, uh..."

"Hey," Blake's voice faltered along with her smile. She cursed herself for apparently picking the wrong subject. "It wasn't that bad. We all did some… unfortunate things while on that medication."

The street wasn't busy, and the way the sun hit the buildings cast half of it in shadow. Ruby shook her head a little, "... remember when we tried that aura healing thing?"

Pipes. Lava. Oily darkness. Soulless evil in the form black flames and serpentine bones hell bent on destruction. Blake frowned at the unbidden memories. She and Yang had spoken at length about the experience. She wondered if Ruby and Weiss had done the same. Her feet subconsciously shifted as she thought, bringing her to stand in the shadows with Ruby. "I do."

The younger girl leaned against a stretch of blank brick wall, rubbing her arm, "I hurt Weiss in there."

Blake hesitated, distressed by the very distress she saw in Ruby. Part of her felt it should really be Yang here right now, maybe even Weiss, but right now it was just her, and she would do her best in their absence. In an effort to emulate the comforting things she'd seen Yang do for others, Blake moved to stand beside Ruby, carefully placing an arm around her shoulders. "...What happened?"

Ruby hadn't really meant to go into a lot of detail but once she started the words all just tumbled out. The dark scythe, the chase through the twisted streets, and the fight in the grove of lamps. By the time she got to the part about biting Weiss and choking her on the ground she'd slid down the wall to sit with her knees drawn up, a sniveling, crying mess.

"She says it wasn't my fault, but I still feel really, really bad, and I don't know what to do."

Blake had slid down the wall alongside her, rubbing slow calming circles across the younger girl's back. The account had stunned her into silence - it was no wonder they had stayed so tight-lipped about the experience - it was worse than she could have imagined. Seeing Yang turn into a dragon had been horrifying, but there was still a sense of otherness about the beast she'd become. She could rationalize that it wasn't her, that the creature trying to kill her had just captured her partner somehow. She couldn't imagine fighting Yang herself, let alone being the one forced into attacking.

Forced. That was the key. Weiss was completely right in saying none of those actions were Ruby's fault, and yet Blake knew all too well that knowledge of your own resistance to actions that ultimately ended up harming others seldom if ever accounted for the crushing guilt that followed.

Gentle arms pulled Ruby into a warm embrace, one hand cradling the back of her head.

"Of _course_ you feel bad... your free will was stripped from you, you were forced to hurt someone you care for and - it's ok to feel bad about that." Blake pulled back, lightly brushing the tear-dampened hair from Ruby's face. "What's not ok is refusing to forgive yourself. Weiss has already forgiven you, hasn't she?"

"I... I dunno," Ruby gave a half-shrug, dropping her gaze. She missed her cloak. If she had it, she could pull the hood up or something instead of just crying in the middle of the street. Blake didn't seem to care, though, so Ruby sat with her and let the older girl brush her hair out of her face. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and trailed her fingertips on the sidewalk, "I keep trying to do stuff to make it up to her, but she doesn't let me. You can't really make up for something like that, I guess. Just she… I mean, I just..." Ruby trailed off miserably.

"You want to repay her somehow," Blake offered quietly. Her brows furrowed as she tried to contemplate Weiss's continued refusal of Ruby's goodwill - many instances she'd witnessed personally, come to think of it. She'd never had an easy time understanding the heiress's thoughts and motivations, and it certainly didn't help that talking to her sometimes made things even more confusing, with how prone she was to denial. Blake reached down to still the hand tracing patterns on the concrete. "Ruby. Have you… spoken to Weiss about any of this?"

The young team leader responded with guilty silence.

"I see..." Blake pulled back, placing her hands in her lap. "Then... that's what you should do. When we get back, go find her, don't let her run." She ducked down slightly, amber eyes searching to meet downcast silver. "If you're going to move past this, you and Weiss are going to have to do it together."

"Yeah…. yeah, you're right," Ruby sniffed wetly. She tried to look away, but Blake caught her eyes. She wiped her face with her sleeve, "Sorry for crying all over you in the middle of town." she sat back, brushing her hands on her combat skirt, "It seemed like you guys were all doing okay, and I just didn't really want to talk about it, you know?" she sighed a frustrated sigh, sitting with crossed legs, hands braced on her ankles. "I guess I'd better figure out what to say to Weiss."

Blake covered one of Ruby's hands with her own. "The best thing you can do is be honest." The distant jingle of door bells caught her ears, bringing curious eyes up to scan the street. She smiled at the source - a colorful, quaint little florist. "Of course, you could always bring her flowers."

Ruby brightened at the idea momentarily, then slipped back into doubt, "I dunno. You saw what happened today when I tried to bring her napkins."

"You can say a lot more with flowers than you can with napkins," Blake replied matter-of-factly. She stood and pulled Ruby to her feet, motioning to the florist with a slight tilt of her head. "It can't hurt to take a look, right?"

"Well..." Ruby glanced at the flower shop. She really wasn't an expert at this sort of thing. "Maybe just a look."

Blake smiled and tugged Ruby towards the small shop by the hand, ready and willing to share her vast expertise in the language of flowers learned from her numerous forays into romantic literature. If there was a flower that could help break the ice, so to speak, she was sure they could find it.

The bell over the door jingled as the two entered the sunny little place and the old man behind the counter called out a greeting.

Ruby waved with her free hand and breathed deep. The air was sweet with flowers; colors burst from every table and shelf in the shop. Nothing drew her eye in particular, though she did tend to gravitate towards the roses. Still, she just wasn't sure.

Ruby's predilection for her namesake didn't go unnoticed. Blake nudged the hesitant girl towards the corner bursting with roses arranged in a vibrant rainbow of just about every shade known to man. "They suit you," she said softly.

"Must be a family thing," Ruby grinned, cupping a white bloom and inhaling. The delicate scent stirred memories she tried not to dwell on too often. She traced the petals with her thumb and looked around at the other flowers. There just... wasn't anything right for Weiss. Her smile faded a little, "I don't know, Blake. This was a good idea and all, but I'm not really feeling it right now. Maybe we could just make that stop at the electronics store instead?"

Blake eyed the room of flowers one last time, briefly considering bringing something back to Weiss herself. "...I don't think I'm feeling flowers either," she eventually agreed. "The electronic store sounds great," she waved apologetically to the man behind the counter as they turned to head out the door. "I was hoping you could help me pick out a new scroll."

"A new scroll?" Ruby followed Blake out the door, back into the open sidewalk, "What happened to your old one?"

"Oh, my scroll is fine." Blake shrugged. "It's for Weiss, actually."

"Oh." then with realization, "_Oh..._" Ruby balanced on the curb as they walked, placing one foot directly in front of the other, like she was walking on a tightrope, "Because you broke hers in half?" she glanced at Blake, "That was pretty bad. Why do you need my help? Don't they all do kind of the same thing?"

Blake grinned. "Yes, they do, more or less..." she let her sentence trail off as they neared their destination. A small chime sounded as she opened the door and held it for Ruby. "...but we are going to customize this one," she finished with a wink.

* * *

><p>Beacon was fitted with a plethora of gyms and practice rooms. Almost any style fighter could find appropriate equipment and space for their training- even those who used more unusual weapons, such as Ruby's scythe, could be accommodated quite easily, should they know where to look.<p>

Weiss naturally hadn't made it a point to visit the same gym as Yang in the past. Not often, anyway. The open floor and the first seven feet or so up the walls were padded with synthetic rubber/foam matting to help break falls without breaking heads. Light angled in through the high, wide windows. A couple of fans turned lazily overhead, stirring the thick smell of sweat and practice that clung to the mats and equipment.

The heiress smoothed the front of her seldom-worn cotton t-shirt. If they were going to be in close quarters, she preferred not getting her fencing gear scorched. Still, short sleeves and pants were hardly her usual attire. She crossed her arms, feeling somewhat indecent while she waited for Yang to finish wrapping her knuckles. "Are you done yet?"

Yang looked up with a neutral expression, flexing her hands and fingers in a practiced pattern. She didn't bother to hide the intensity of her gaze as she appraised the girl standing before her, carefully examining Weiss's every feature, her eye for detail rivaled only by the finest jewelers.

Slight build, excellent posture, sharp eyes, beautiful face. A smile started to creep its way into the brawler's eyes. She couldn't say much for Weiss's personality - she was a blast to tease if nothing else - but she could certainly see why Ruby would be smitten with her by sheer looks alone.

And that was exactly why she needed to speak to Weiss.

Every relationship needed ground rules, and she was going to help lay them out.

A grin lit up Yang's face, the cheerful expression conflicting with the audible cracking of knuckles. Of course, she also had every intention of actually helping Weiss learn unarmed combat as well - anything that could help keep Ruby safe - but there was no reason she couldn't do both at once.

"Yeah, I'm done," she said at long last, her feet sliding across the floor as she spoke. She dropped into a basic fighting stance, glancing around the empty gym before setting her sights back on Weiss. There was no sense trying to teach moves and techniques that the heiress might have already learned. She needed... a small placement test. "Show me what you know!"

Yang launched forward with her final word, throwing a straight right aimed at Weiss's face.

The heiress, already tense and apprehensive following the blonde's scrutiny and slow approach, leapt sideways, "What are you doing, you maniac?! Aren't you supposed to teach me what to do first?"

Her balance was flawless, her fencing stance impeccable, drilled into her over the years; her empty hands were useless, however, open and only partly raised in defense.

"Arms up!" came the split-second reply as Yang twisted, followed closely by a high kick.

Weiss ducked away, retreating across the mat, "How is raising my arms supposed to help me?"

Yang simply smiled, never losing momentum for a second as she sprang forward in a full bodied tackle.

Weiss knew Yang's style. She had watched her before, trained alongside her. Punches and kicks were a given. Weiss knew her reach, even knew how many rounds Ember Celica could fire before needing a reload. A full body tackle, though?

Yang hit Weiss like a ton of bricks, taking her to the floor where the heiress instantly transformed into a small, white-haired personification of the word 'furious'. She tried to yank an arm free, shrieking, _"Yang Xiao Long what is wrong with you?!"_

Weiss's livid words went in one ear and out the other as Yang calmly shifted backwards to sit straddled on the smaller girl's hips, freeing Weiss's arms, but pinning her to the floor with her full body weight. Weiss twisted and shoved at Yang's legs, trying to wriggle free, but to no avail.

"OK, so I think I've learned everything I need to start." Amethyst eyes stared off into space with a thoughtful expression as the hefty brawler spoke, arms crossed. "Fantastic speed, top notch reaction time, excellent form… for fencing, not as much for hand-to-hand. Definitely not much in the way of weight to throw around," at this, Weiss bucked extra hard, snarling, "but that should be no problem if you can translate your accuracy with a rapier into accuracy with your fists..."

Golden hair slipped from Yang's shoulders in loose tangles as she leaned forward slightly, staring down at her very _very_ unhappy teammate. "You don't seem to take directions very well though, which is unfortunate since I'm supposed to be teaching you."

Weiss sat up as much as she could, attempting to punch the brawler in the stomach. Her position didn't allow her to get a lot of force behind it. "You're _supposed _to be giving me pointers, not _sitting on me _in the middle of the gym."

"Woah, hey," Yang caught the fist headed for her torso. "You can stop now-" she grabbed the other fist aimed at her leg. "Weiss, relax. I'm not going to hurt you, jeeze. In fact, I plan on teaching you to avoid injury altogether, but you're going to hurt yourself if you keep squirming like that. Besides," she winked, giving Weiss's hands a quick squeeze before releasing them, "Ruby would punch me right in the face if I harmed a single hair on your head."

When Yang let her go, Weiss propped herself back on the mat, scowling, breathing hard. Somewhat red in the face, she demanded, "And what exactly do you mean by that?

"Oh come on Weiss, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's not like it's some huge secret my baby sis is completely smitten with you – you know she compared you to cookies? _Cookies_, Weiss!" Yang threw her arms in the air for emphasis. "The only other thing she's ever compared to cookies is Crescent Rose."

"Oh, _wow_, so I'm on the level of baked goods and inanimate objects? Things must be serious," Weiss rolled her eyes and renewed her struggle to get out from under the brawler.

"It _is_ serious! Ruby can be very enthusiastic about people she likes and - Weiss, for the love of, stop, you're doing it all wrong." Yang reached back to grasp the legs flailing around behind her. "Knees up - plant your feet firmly on the floor," she gently hooked one of Weiss's feet around her own, "make sure you have one of my legs trapped..." The brawler leaned forward suddenly, bringing their faces inches apart to better study the blue eyes glaring daggers up at her. "There's no need to hide things from me you know - you two have my blessing."

The heiress flushed crimson and shoved Yang with all her strength, utilizing her new-found leverage.

The brawler pitched forward, rolling away and up into a crouch. "That's the spirit, Weiss!" She whirled around to smile at her escaped opponent. "You learn quick." Her eyes narrowed in an expression somewhere between playful and intimidating. "I taught that same technique to Ruby. Not that she'll ever have to use it, I trust."

Weiss regained her feet and backed away, her right hand readying a glyph. She intended to stay very far out of the brawler's reach from now on. "Yang, stop for a second. Do you honestly believe that I have romantic intentions towards your fifteen year old sister?"

"Uh, yes? I'm not _blind_, Weiss. Don't think I miss the way you look at her. You may think you're being discreet, but even Jaune can see how happy she makes you." Yang paused, looking thoughtful. "Which... is probably why he's stopped coming after you, actually."

"_The way I look at her?_" Weiss recoiled, dropping her glyph entirely. "I do _not _'look' at Ruby. And what does that blond idiot have to do with anything? Maybe he just finally got the message that I'm_ not interested_. Did you think of that?"

Yang rose to her feet, brushing herself off as she laughed off the heiress's denial. "Jeez, don't get all defensive. It's ok, I understand, my little sis is the pretty much the cutest in the world, after all. Irresistibly cute!" She settled back into a light footed boxing stance, slowly advancing as she continued, "Which is why we need to set some ground rules, Weiss."

"What? No. Are you even listening to me?" Weiss felt her heart pick up its pace as Yang continued her approach. She gave ground, keeping distance between them and snapping, "I don't need ground rules. I don't even know why we're talking about this. Just because you have some deluded notion that I'm infatuated with your sister-"

"Rule number one," Yang cut her off, picking up the pace of her approach. "Everything past first base is strictly off limits."

"First _base_?" This was ridiculous. She couldn't just keep running—there had to be a way to make Yang listen. Weiss stopped on the mat, bristling more and more as the brawler closed the gap between them. She took a breath, bracing to face her larger, stronger teammate, "Yang, stop so we can get this figured out. You're completely mistaken."

Yang came to a stop right inside Weiss's guard, amethyst eyes boring into defiant blue, impressed that her naturally evasive teammate was holding her ground. "All right then Weiss." She held her stance, allowing the heiress to decide her own fate with whatever her next response was. "What am I mistaken about?"

Weiss hesitated, sensing that she should choose her words with care. "Ruby is my partner here at Beacon. We're teammates. Nothing else."

A clear internal war danced behind Yang's eyes even as they narrowed in suspicion. She held Weiss's icy blue gaze in silence, broken at last by a soft sigh from the brawler as she stood straight, dropping her stance entirely. She stared a moment longer, mulling over each word before she spoke.

"Just make absolutely sure you keep rule number two." Heavy hands gripped the heiress's shoulders. "Never make Ruby cry. Promise me that much, Weiss."

Weiss's gaze wavered. She kept her shoulders square even as she looked away. Her voice lost its edge, "We're _not_ dating, Yang."

"..._Wrong _answer." In the blink of an eye, Yang's arms moved, snaking around Weiss and yanking her down into an ironclad headlock.

"Hey-!" Weiss tried to jerk out of Yang's grip only to find herself spun backwards and trapped with the brawler's arm around her throat. She dug her nails into Yang's skin, squirming and thrashing to escape the hold, "Let go. Let _go,_ you-"

"Denial won't get you anywhere, Weiss~" Yang held fast, smiling through the sharp pricks of pain in her arm as she leaned down to speak into Weiss's ear. "Rule number two is _non-negotiable._"

The heiress twisted, swinging one arm back to try to hit Yang in the stomach or the face or _anything_ really, all the while spitting threats and insults. "You're _insane_. You're _out of your mind._ There's _nothing_ between me and Ruby, and she's such a _child_ how could anyone even _attempt_ to promise not to make her cry? She probably cries in her sleep for _no reason_. Now get off of me, you psychotic moron!"

Yang's smile wavered for only a second, when she took a wild elbow to the eye - Weiss was accurate even when she wasn't trying. She blinked a few times, took a deep breath, and loosened her hold ever so slightly, just enough to keep her unruly captive from strangling herself if she struggled too much.

"You're lucky I like you, Weiss," the brawler's voice came out strained, her attempt at a lighthearted tone failing miserably as flames began to spark and swirl around them. "But we're going to have problems if you keep insulting Ruby like that."

"Problems? Oh, that would be just _horrible_ because _clearly_ we aren't having _any_ problems right now," Weiss struggled to right herself in Yang's hold, "I swear, Yang Xiao Long, if you don't let me go..."

"If I don't let you go..." Yang suddenly shifted her hold, dropping her arms from Weiss's neck to wrap around her middle in a steely bearhug, pinning the heiress's own dangerously accurate flailing arms to her sides. "...then you can't run." The words carried no malice - spoken gently as simple fact rather than as a threat - despite the small flickering flames that continued to dance around the arms encircling Weiss.

The fire was getting to be somewhat alarming. The heiress's voice rose as she fought to get away from the heat, "Yang. Yang, stop. _Stop._"

Her right hand formed the shape of one of her glyphs.

The slight edge of panic in Weiss's voice caught Yang off guard, snuffing out her flames in an instant. She stepped back, releasing the smaller girl from her arms, but grabbing the wrist of the hand forming a glyph. "Sorry Weiss," she rubbed the back of her head, looking around at the empty gym to avoid the icy glare aimed in her direction, "I can get a bit carried away when it comes to my little sister."

"I meant what I said earlier though-" she added quickly, finally locking eyes with the small bundle of fury trying to stare her down, "I'm not out to hurt you or anything." She smiled as she spoke, pausing to wipe a stray trickle of blood from a cut on the eyelid that suffered the blow from Weiss's elbow.

"That would be a _lot_ easier to believe if you weren't constantly manhandling me," The heiress shot, holding her glyph just in case, though it would be hard to use with her wrist trapped in Yang's vice of a grip.

"Technically it's _womanhandling_," Yang shot back with a wink. "Seriously though, I'm trying to show you hand-to-hand combat, of _course_ I'm going to be up close and personal. What did you expect?"

"_Instructions_ maybe?" Weiss hauled at Yang's grip, trying to break free, "Look, either way, I'm done. I need to go to go take a shower."

"Instructions? I _gave_ you instructions but you didn't listen! You just questioned them - who even _does_ that in the middle of a fight?"

"Well excuse me if I question someone who tells me to deal with a kick likely to send me across the room by _putting my arms up_," the heiress switched tactics, prying at the hand around her wrist with her free one.

"Weiss, you wound me," Yang put a hand to her heart - the other holding fast against prying fingers. "I wasn't going full force! Did you really think I was going to kick you _across the room_? What do you think I am, some kind of barbarian? ...Actually, don't answer that one."

Weiss didn't. Instead, she snarled, "Let. _Go_."

Yang frowned. "But I've only taught you one move. _And _you haven't agreed to any of the Rules. There are - well there's really just the two. Easier to remember."

"Oh for Dust's sake," the fencer jerked her hand again, then paused, hitting upon sudden inspiration, "If I refuse to agree to your 'rules', will you forbid me to go out with your sister?"

The brawler's frown darkened into a glower. "Straight up refusing the ground rules would make me… unhappy, to put it lightly. But, that's not the point. I'm not my sister's lord and master," the glower melted into a wink and smile, "even I can't keep Ruby from what she wants."

Yang brushed a few strands of gold from her face, dropping a pensive gaze to the padded floor as she continued, "The point is, those rules are in place because I want to make sure Ruby doesn't get hurt, plain and simple," her eyes traveled up to the pale hand currently in her grasp, "and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one here who wants that."

Finally, piercing amethyst locked with blue, "You know, Weiss, everyone might call you an ice queen, and you might act the part _very _well, but the thing about ice is... you can see right through it."

"No you can't. That's glass," another futile jerk of her arm, another scathing glare that lost its intensity and slid to the floor, "She's my teammate. It's not like I would _try _to hurt her."

Yang arched an eyebrow. "That's... as good as I'm going to get from you isn't it?" She searched the heiress with hard eyes, spacing out entirely as she slipped into thought.

After a moment, she blinked back to reality. "Well, all right then, close enough." Wordlessly, she pulled Weiss in for one last hug before releasing her with a smile. "I can still teach you a few _moves_ if you want. I'll even give you _instructions_," she added with a sly wink.

Weiss fixed the brawler with an icy glare, brushing her messed-up white hair back over her shoulder. "You're incorrigible."

The heiress turned on her heel without another word, leaving the mat and collect her school uniform on her way to the showers.

Yang stood with her arms crossed, watching the perfectly clean and not sweaty heiress storm off. She recognized this maneuver - one of Weiss's many classic avoidance techniques – the patented "just walk away".

In a show of good will, Yang resisted any further teasing and went to grab her own pile of discarded school clothes. She smiled when she saw her scroll blinking. There was a new message.

_Yang,_

_Don't be jealous, but Ruby and I are eating ice cream. Custom decals were a go – mission success. Ruby's design came out beautifully. _

_We will head back soon._

_- Blake_

_PS. Give Ruby a big hug when she gets back. She's had a tough time. I'll tell you about it later. _

A grin spread across Yang's face, only to be quickly replaced with a frown once she reached the postscript. If her little sister needed hugs, she would make sure she was right there and ready to give them immediately. School uniform securely in hand, Yang shot one last stealthy glance at Weiss before leaving to head back to the dorm to wait for the other half of her team to return.


End file.
